Why did we do this project? Because it's staggering how little we know about the different impact of the pandemic on family finances between countries. We don't pay enough attention to comparisons between countries in general. Here's some key things I learnt from the report...
Crazy stat: poor UK families are 20% poorer (and rich UK ones 20% richer) than their French equivalents. Despite typical incomes being nearly identical in France, Germany and the UK inequality levels are VERY different
Key French takeaway: the lack of progress on employment in France contrasts with a near two decade surge in Germany
Key German takeaway: financial problems in Germany are very concentrated amongst low income households. The poorest German households have the highest risk of being workless (higher than in France despite it's low employment rate) AND their housing costs are ridiculously high
Key UK takeaway: we dont do saving (unless it's into houses). Typical UK households spend 96% of their income (vs 75% in France) so half of us have less than one month's income in savings. But we've got TWICE the property wealth of households in France and Germany
So that's some of the backdrop to this crisis. Now what has happened during it?
The labour market hit has been significantly worse in the UK and France than in Germany (although note Germany is now tightening economic restrictions). The young and hospitality workers have lost out everywhere, but UK workers on insecure contracts have done particularly badly
Despite job losses being similar in France and the UK, income falls have been MUCH worse here. 40% of households that saw someone lose work saw an income fall of 25%+ in the UK vs only 20% in France. Germany has seen lower labour market damage.
Why? Partly because the UK welfare state just doesn't do as much to insure incomes against the impact of job loss (ie you got a lot of protection if furloughed but far far less support if you lost your job)
The differences between countries during this pandemic were bigger than I expected - given the three have broadly tried the same approaches to policy during it.
And thanks to the authors ( @gustafmaja @dan_tomlinson_ @fahmidarahman @kathleenhenehan) for teaching us all a lot via their huge amount of work on this
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