The Young and the Elderly at Risk ― Individual Outcomes and Contemporary Policy Challenges in European Societies

The current retrenchment of the welfare states is buffering the growing demographic and economic pressures in European countries at the expense of the young and the elderly. However, both investment in the young, which determines a society's future, and providing public support for the elderly, the most deserving needy group, are seen as musts. This book encompasses a selection of empirical studies reflecting on when and why the young and the elderly are at risk in several (mostly Western) European countries. Contributions in the book examine the educational achievement and the labor market entry of youths, particularly those who have a migration background, the poverty risk experienced by the elderly, especially if they are also immigrants and/or women, the pension outcomes of former cross-border workers, the simulated consequeces of a recent pension benefit reform as well as those of a potential reform including financial assets and housing wealth in old-age income protection, and finally the extent, and possible erosion, of the support for government providing child-care and protecting the elderly. 'Empirical research, as it is presented in this book's contributions, can add much to our understanding of how this social contract, and by extension also others, like the social contracts between the active and inactive, the healthy and the sick, and the rich and the poor, can be sustained, economically, politically, as well as socially.' Wim van Oorschot, Professor of Social Policy at KU Leuven and Honorary President of ESPAne

Ioana Salagean holds a PhD in economics from the University of Nancy 2 in France and worked as Assistant Professor for M.Sc. IMPALLA. She currently works for Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and the National Statistical Institute of Luxembourg (Statec) analyzing empirically poverty and living conditions in a national as well as a comparative perspective.Catalina Lomos obtained a PhD degree in Education from University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and she worked between 2011 and 2015 as an assistant professor in the International MSc in Social Policy Analysis (IMPALLA) and as a post-doctoral researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER, formerly CEPS/INSTEAD), G.D. Luxembourg. Since 2015 she continues her work as a researcher at LISER, her empirical focus being on student achievement within the framework of school effectiveness research, and on cross-cultural comparisons implying measurement invariance. In addition, since 2012, Catalina has been closely collaborating with the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth in Luxembourg, in different national projects.Anne Hartung is research associate at the IRSEI Institute for Research on Socio-Economic Inequalities, University of Luxembourg investigating stratification and inequalities and previously worked as Assistant Professor for the M.Sc. IMPALLA at the University of Leuven, Belgium and LISER, Luxembourg.