- ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making
- Edited by Enrico di Bella, Luigi Fabbris, Corrado Lagazio
Job loss and financial struggle among the older age groups in 2021: Lessons from the European Union
- Demetrio Panarello
- Giorgio Tassinari
- © 2023 Author(s) |
- CC BY 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.26
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused detrimental economic effects worldwide. Adults around retirement age are especially vulnerable in this respect, being more likely to experience disturbances to their employment patterns: indeed, older adults are in general more affected by COVID-19 than the younger ones and less comfortable with working remotely, particularly as this often implies the possession of specific technological skills. Here, we examine the different impacts of the pandemic crisis on the various socio-demographic groups, particularly focusing on workers aged 50 and above who have experienced an involuntary job loss in the first year of the pandemic. We make use of the second Corona round of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), with data collected in all continental EU countries plus Switzerland and Israel during the summer of 2021. We analyse the extent to which the older European population kept being able to make ends meet, especially as a significant number of people in the sample experienced retirement or involuntary loss of employment, which translates into rising inequalities. Our results rely on subjective measures of economic well-being, measuring the respondents' self-perceived economic vulnerability. We show the ability to cover households' expenses to be associated with increasing age; however, also the likelihood of job loss results to be higher among the older individuals. Indeed, economic vulnerability is generally stronger among the individuals with poorer health and, thus, the oldest ones. We reveal the existence of a social component of poverty and highlight the need for economic support for ageing individuals in Europe, with some interesting differences across the EU countries.
- Keywords:
- SHARE Corona Survey,
- COVID-19 pandemic,
- Economic well-being,
- Older adults,
University of Bologna, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-1667-1936
University of Bologna, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5161-7989
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Chapter Information
Chapter Title
Job loss and financial struggle among the older age groups in 2021: Lessons from the European Union
Authors
Demetrio Panarello, Giorgio Tassinari
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.26
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Bibliographic Information
Book Title
ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making
Book Subtitle
Book of short papers
Editors
Enrico di Bella, Luigi Fabbris, Corrado Lagazio
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press, Genova University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0106-3
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0107-0
Series Title
Proceedings e report
Series ISSN
2704-601X
Series E-ISSN
2704-5846