Work harder: the Porto Social Summit’s call to Europe’s welfare states
Welfare states are having to run harder to stand still. They need to act in mutual support to win the race against inequality and poverty.
What should a female career and family structure post-pandemic look like?
The pandemic threatens to exacerbate gender inequalities and reinforce the association between women and unpaid care—unless contrary action is taken.
The imperative of a gender-sensitive recovery
The coronavirus crisis has highlighted—and widened—the persistent discrimination, disadvantage and injustices women face.
A shot in the arm
The European Union needs to raise its vaccination target and bring it forward. The good news is it can.
The Social Summit—and beyond
Concrete commitments must follow today’s Social Summit in Porto if the promise of a social Europe is to be realised.
What price a life?
Kate Pickett widens the panorama from the all-consuming coverage in Britain of the death of Prince Philip to ask why human lives and labours are so differentially valued.
Can virtual addresses provide a gateway to rights for homeless people?
Europe’s lockdowns highlighted the right to housing—and its link to health and security. For many, however, it remains a distant privilege.
Taming the Big Tech tiger
New EU digital rules need to tackle the business model of surveillance capitalism.
White, rich, safe: Covid-19 exposes health inequality
The distribution of coronavirus vaccine around the world is glaringly unjust. But many wealthy countries have an equity problem of their own.
A greener and more social pillar
As the Social Summit looms, a step change in social and environmental rights is needed to realise the EU’s just-transition goal.
Work-life conflict in Europe
Work and life are often thought of as a zero-sum of hours in conflict but work-life balance also depends on investment in care and men’s full participation in the home.
A small step towards gender equality in pay
The European Commission’s proposal to reduce the stubborn gender pay gap pulls some punches, apparently anticipating employer resistance.
Chop chop—could hairdressers restyle European social dialogue?
European social dialogue fell into desuetude under the neoliberal Barroso commission. Hairdressers might just put some colour back in it.
The pandemic one year on—revaluing our public services
Covid-19 hit societies in Europe rendered frail by austerity. Investment in public services and their workers is essential if they are to recover.
‘Migrants’ moral panic still leading to lost lives
The pandemic has overshadowed, but not reduced, refugee flows to Europe. Damaging misconceptions of asylum-seekers haven’t softened either.
Social pillar Action Plan—longer on aspiration
The Action Plan shows ambition on poverty, employment and training. But the concrete measures are not (yet) up to the task.
Taxing better to create more caring—and feminist—societies
International Women’s Day falls in the shadow of a pandemic which has hit women hard around the world.
Fissures that tear us apart and pressures that weigh us all down
Kate Pickett contends in a new Social Europe column that inequalities go together—and so their opponents shouldn’t get drawn into rivalry.
Don’t defund the BBC
Rather than public institutions being limited to fixing market failures, organisations such as the BBC are also market shapers.
Making EU regulation better for all
The stigma attached to democratic EU regulation by the ‘one in, one out’ approach must be replaced by a positive commitment to the common good.
Aligning the social pillar with human rights
The Action Plan of the European Pillar of Social Rights could lead to a profound shift in the enjoyment of human rights in the EU.