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Society


Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher. We use the values of freedom, sustainability and equality as the foundation on which we examine society’s most pressing challenges. We are committed to publishing cutting-edge thinking and new ideas from the most thought-provoking people. This archive page brings together Social Europe articles on society.

Does it take a pandemic to relaunch European social dialogue?

Christophe Degryse 17th May 2021

One of the unwitting effects of the crisis has been to remake the case for dialogue between social partners to solve major problems.

Work harder: the Porto Social Summit’s call to Europe’s welfare states

Bea Cantillon 14th May 2021

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?

Agnieszka Piasna 12th May 2021

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

Juliane Bir and Aline Brüser 12th May 2021

The coronavirus crisis has highlighted—and widened—the persistent discrimination, disadvantage and injustices women face.

A shot in the arm

Andrew Watt and Sebastian Dullien 10th May 2021

The European Union needs to raise its vaccination target and bring it forward. The good news is it can.

The Social Summit—and beyond

Luca Visentini 7th May 2021

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 3rd May 2021

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?

Lucrezia Lozza 15th April 2021

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

Claudia Prettner 9th April 2021

New EU digital rules need to tackle the business model of surveillance capitalism.

A greener and more social pillar

Maria Petmesidou and Ana Guillén 1st April 2021

As the Social Summit looms, a step change in social and environmental rights is needed to realise the EU’s just-transition goal.

White, rich, safe: Covid-19 exposes health inequality

Karola Klatt 1st April 2021

The distribution of coronavirus vaccine around the world is glaringly unjust. But many wealthy countries have an equity problem of their own.

Work-life conflict in Europe

Frances McGinnity 26th March 2021

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

Kalina Arabadjieva 26th March 2021

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?

Oliver Roethig and Dimitris Theodorakis 16th March 2021

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

Mette Nord and Jan Willem Goudriaan 11th March 2021

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

Reanna Smith 10th March 2021

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

Lukas Hochscheidt 9th March 2021

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

Magdalena Sepúlveda 8th March 2021

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 8th March 2021

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

Mariana Mazzucato 4th March 2021

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

Isabelle Schömann 3rd March 2021

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.

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