28 / 150
THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
28
The weakening role of the family
on stability
The social vulnerability that can be brought on
by the mere fact of having a low income has
increased across Europe because the process of
secular modernisation has meant a gradual ero-
sion of the traditional societal structures where
the family was at the heart. Growing numbers of
people are living in single-person a household,
which means having no family members, nota-
bly a husband or a wife, with whom to share
goods, as was traditionally the case for the ma-
jority of households in the past. The number of
people, women in particular, who are raising
children alone, has also increased dramatically
and this trend looks set to continue unabated.
This means that more and more people with
lower individual incomes have to derive their
housing and living costs from this income alone.
Statistics show that people in single-person
households, and especially young people, are
particularly at risk of hovering either close to or
below the poverty threshold. Single mothers and
fathers have a particular disadvantage with re-
gard to the job market; not only do they have to
be able to cover all of their expenditure with their
(sometimes very low) incomes, including expens-
es relating to their children, but their child-rearing
duties mean that they are more at risk of having
to enter very low-paid employment.
Even without any polarisation of the labour
market, the progressive isolation of people
forms the basis for precarious living conditions
to varying degrees. When combined with the
developments seen on many European labour
markets, however, it has morphed into a sys-
temic risk of poverty since an “acceptable”
standard of living without a second income is
now widely regarded as unrealistic.
On the other hand, it has also been observed
that the remaining family solidarity often acts as
the all-important cushion for the effects of the
polarised labour market. It is not only in Eu-
rope’s Mediterranean countries where many
young adults are spending far longer living with
their parents (“hotel mama”) than corresponds
to the standard image we have of the course of
a person’s life.
One further observation regarding family
models is relevant here. In the stages of indus-
trial development that saw a huge increase in
“professional” occupations, many women saw
marriage as a gateway to upwards-social mobil-
ity (the stereotype of a doctor marrying a nurse).
The effect of this was a blending of the social
classes. With the increasing occupational eman-
cipation of women, this societal unlocking mech-
anism has faded somewhat into the background.
Today the social strata tend to remain as they are
(doctors marrying doctors), which can also be
viewed as a part of the polarisation process.
Welfare state: helpful yet overburdened
Were there to be no welfare provisions at all, the
social polarisation of Europe would be much
more extreme; many more people would be liv-
ing in poverty or would even be destitute, life
expectancy would be considerably lower and the
children of poorer parents would barely have
any hope of improving their chances of social
mobility. The welfare state adjusts the results of
the labour market essentially in two ways:
– People on low incomes who need welfare to
be able to achieve a certain minimum stand-
ard of living receive extra income, which is fi-
nanced by taxpayers. For a percentage of the
population these transfers from the state are
their only source of income. The generosity of