Links between European Union some social reforms features and social indicators for 2011-2021 period

Abstract

Although compared to many other parts of the world, the European Union is a prosperous region, with a relatively low level of social inequality, nevertheless a series of problems persist and often develop in times of crisis (e.g. the global crisis of 2008-2009, the sovereign debt crisis, the COVID-19 crisis). Under the influence of the south-eastern flank of EU27 countries, poverty, social inequity and even the participation of young people in the labor market or in education and training programs seem to suffer significantly from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study uses panel data from 2011 to 2021 and analyzes it using a regression approach to determine the influence of the characteristics of social policies at the level of EU27 countries on several problematic social indicators such as: At-risk-of-poverty rate by sex, Income quintile share ratio (S80/S20) by sex, Young people neither in employment nor in education and training by sex (NEET). According to the findings of this research, the effect of the characteristics of social policies on the improvement of the above indicators is weak, and the influence comes more from the part of the social indicators on the characteristics of the social policies at the EU27 level.