On the Extremes: Poverty of Young Adults in Greece and Germany (2008–2012)

Abstract

Brigitte Schels, Hans Dietrich, Anette Haas, Vasilis Angelis and Annie Tubadji investigate changes in the poverty risks of 18- to 29-year-olds in Greece and Germany after the Great Recession. The authors discuss the two countries as examples for different welfare state regimes, Germany as an example for a conservative welfare state and Greece for a sub-protective welfare state. After 2008, Greece was one of the European countries to experience a particularly hard economic recession. In contrast, the consequences of the recession in Germany were weak and only of short duration. Given these different contexts, the authors investigate the differences in young people’s poverty risks and similarities across place and time. The authors draw on results from descriptive analyses, multivariate regression and decomposition analyses which show that young adults in Greece experienced impoverishment over time, while the poverty risks of young adults in Germany were rather stable. Among other things, their studies show that the employment intensity of the household is the major influencing factor in both countries. In both countries, the associations between the employment intensity of the household and relative income poverty seem to be stronger than between employment intensity and severe material deprivation.