Oldal 59 [59]
Inequalities and Social Europe | 57
Considering the income figures, we can see that the impact of the financial
crisis differed among countries. Typically, the populations of the UK, Ireland,
the Baltic states, and some Southern European countries (Spain, Greece,
Malta) suffered a drop in their before-transfers income in the years following
the crisis, while in the countries of continental Europe and Scandinavia the
crisis merely led to a stop in the further rises of people’s income - which can,
of course, also be a painful experience pending the conditions.
Looking at the trends in incomes and income inequalities - which we
posited as being connected to the macro-economic crisis - one also needs to
examine how this crisis affected main macroeconomic indicators, specifically
GDP and employment. Figure 6 presents average GDP growth figures for EU
member countries individually for two separate periods: 2008 to 2013, and
2014 to 2019. In the second period, on average, all countries experienced
positive growth, while in the first period directly following the crisis, nearly
half of them reported a drop in their Gross Domestic Product.
How a global crisis affects an individual country is determined by several
macroeconomic factors, including general economic structure, and the
strength and openness of the economy. Also, the effect of a drop in the GDP
is likely to affect personal incomes differently. Juxtaposing the results in Figure
6, respectively, we find that while in most countries the drop in the GDP also
resulted in declining incomes, there are exceptions like Italy, Portugal, Finland,
and Hungary. Also, in some cases incomes dropped even though there was
no concomitant drop in the GDP decline, such as in the case of the UK.
It also needs to be noted, however, that these GDP growth averages offset
the year-to-year details. For example, the fact that in the UK in 2009 - the
hardest year of the crisis for many countries - GDP fell by more than 4 per cent.
And while in other countries, for example in Germany, which experienced
an almost 6 per cent decline in the same year, this was offset by a relatively
robust recovery and rising GDP growth rates in the subsequent years (4.18
per cent in 2010 and 3.96 per cent in 2011), in the UK the GDP growth rate
was only 2.07 per cent in 2010 and a mere 1.28 per cent in 2011. This was
enough to yield a positive average value for the period from 2009 to 2013,
but it nevertheless resulted in radically different social consequences. Once
again, these diverging outcomes are deeply rooted in the differing structures
and situations of the respective economies, as well as the distinct policy
approaches applied at the national level.
For employment, I present the employment rate rather than the rate
of unemployment. I do so because unemployment figures fail to capture
discouraged workers and others who quit the labour market for reasons that
are not independent of the economic situation. Also, Figure 7 presents the
relevant values for two individual years (2009 and 2019), along with average
values for a selected three years’ period. More detailed data at our disposal
have shown that these three years marked the peak of the crisis with respect
to employment.