Documents Hellmann, Thorsten 5 results

"Opportunities for social participation in Europe are unevenly distributed. However, how much need is there for socio-political reform in the individual EU member states actually? Will the reforms already undertaken suffice to level the playing field on social issues? While there is a fairly clear picture of the state-of-play for social inclusion in the EU member states, that is one question which remains unanswered.

To cast light upon it, the Bertelsmann Stiftung developed a Reform Barometer in cooperation with the European Bureau for Policy Consulting and Social Research Vienna (Prof. Bernd Marin) and the University of St. Gallen (Prof. Christian Keuschnigg). The Reform Barometer is based on a Europe-wide expert survey, in which 1058 social scientists from across the EU took part. These experts were asked to assess the need for reform during the period from July 2014 to January 2016 from five different angles which relate to social justice (poverty prevention, equitable education, labour market access, social cohesion and non-discrimination and health), as well as to provide details on reform activity of national governments and its expected impact. The results make it possible to compare reform policy both across the five policy dimensions and between countries: so for example, they have shown that some Eastern European countries not only took more action than the average to improve social inclusion, but also received good marks from the experts for the quality of their reforms."

"Cette étude analyse l'équité sociale des pays de l'OCDE, dont l'Allemagne, au moyen de plusieurs indicateurs. L'étude révèle que la pauvreté monétaire a augmenté en Allemagne, notamment la pauvreté infantile. Par ailleurs, le système éducatif allemand présente des carences, en particulier dans l'éducation pré-scolaire. Malgré une forte dépendance économique aux exportations, l'insertion sur le marché du travail en Allemagne a progressé. Cependant, la répartition inégalitaire des revenus, la manière dont est abordée l'immigration dans le débat public et les discriminations fragilisent la cohésion sociale. En revanche, l'Allemagne se distingue en terme d'équité intergénérationnelle et de politique environnementale."

Data on employment have reached levels above those of the peak of the financial crisis in nearly all EU and OECD countries. Nevertheless, the share of people at risk of poverty has shown little decline. Stagnation is also evident with regard to intergenerational justice, a fact that could prove costly for young and coming generations. The Social Justice Index investigates opportunities for social participation in the 41 EU and OECD countries on the basis of 46 quantitative and qualitative criteria. The index examines six dimensions of social justice: poverty, education, the labor market, intergenerational justice, health, and social inclusion and nondiscrimination."

"Well-organized democracies have so far navigated their way through the coronavirus crisis better than those with deficits in this area. These democracies have benefited from their forward-looking and participation-oriented approach to governance. However, worrying developments continue in states where democratic values such as media freedom, civil liberties and the independence of the judiciary were already under threat before the crisis. These states also demonstrated the weakest performance in terms of their response to the crisis."