Chapter 13:
Looking ahead
Eurofound at 50: Building on the past – Shaping the future
Eurofound celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, marking half a century of dedicated research and contributions to improving living and working conditions in Europe.
Over the past five decades, Eurofound has played a pivotal role in shaping policies and fostering social dialogue across the European Union. To mark its 50th year, Eurofound is organising a wide range of activities, which will underscore the Agency’s ongoing commitment to its mission and its role in shaping a socially cohesive Europe.
Director Ivailo Kalfin’s blog post on 50 years supporting better policies for a strong social Europe provides a good overview of what has been achieved over that time.
Research in 2025
In 2025, Eurofound launched its new multiannual work programme for 2025–2028, Responding to Europe’s new opportunities and challenges. Introduced at a key political moment following the 2024 European Parliament elections and the appointment of a new European Commission, the programme supports EU priorities by addressing urgent social and labour market challenges.
It aligns with the Commission’s focus on affordable housing, high-quality jobs, fair working conditions and strengthened social protection – essential to building resilient, inclusive societies.
Eurofound’s work also reflects the Commission’s commitments to the EU’s Anti-Poverty Strategy and the Child Guarantee, with a focus on vulnerable groups, income adequacy and housing affordability. Eurofound’s evidence base will contribute to shaping policies that leave no one behind – a key principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
The work programme is operationalised through four strategic areas:
Working conditions and sustainable work: providing comparative data and analysis that can be used to improve job quality and promote sustainability of work over the life course.
Industrial relations and social dialogue: functioning as a centre of expertise for monitoring and analysing developments in industrial relations and social dialogue, promoting dialogue between management and labour.
Employment and labour markets: providing knowledge to identify changes in the labour market and inform employment policies to improve its functioning and inclusiveness.
Living conditions and quality of life: mapping and analysing key elements for the improvement of living conditions of people, including information on their perception of quality of life and society.
The main outputs from each of these areas in 2025 are described briefly below. The aim is that the evidence produced by the projects described will contribute to policymaking on living and working conditions in the years ahead.
Working conditions and sustainable work
The focus for 2025 will be the 2024 European Working Conditions Survey overview report, which will offer insights into job quality and working conditions across seven dimensions: earnings, prospects, skills and discretion, working time, work intensity, social environment and physical environment. The findings will contribute to ongoing policy discussions on quality jobs, work–life balance, employment security, health and well-being, competitiveness and sustainability of work.
Research will also explore the challenges associated with managing hybrid work and examine how digitalisation, digital skills, innovation and training strategies influence job quality in European SMEs.
Additionally, new evidence will be presented on the working conditions of online platform workers, providing insights into the profile of workers providing services through online marketplaces.
Industrial relations and social dialogue
Eurofound will continue its regular reporting on minimum wages, assessing how Member States have adapted their systems following the transposition of the Minimum Wages Directive. This includes analysing the latest developments in wage-setting mechanisms and the relationship between changes in national minimum wages and collective bargaining agreements, particularly in low-wage sectors.
Research will also examine collective bargaining trends apart from pay bargaining, by analysing 98 agreements across 3 low-wage sectors in 12 EU Member States. Another focus will be the role of national social dialogue in shaping policy, particularly in the context of the European Semester and the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
In support of fair and inclusive labour markets, Eurofound will publish new research on pay transparency, including a dedicated study on how the principle of ‘work of equal value’ is being defined and implemented under the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
Eurofound will continue to support social dialogue by conducting studies on the representativeness of the European social partners in specific sectors, including agriculture, maritime transport, ports, and tanning and leather.
Employment and labour markets
In 2025, Eurofound will publish research on gender pay disparities, examining why the gender pay gap persists despite women’s higher levels of educational attainment.
Additional research will analyse how tasks differ in various occupations in the EU. Data from the EU-LFS 2022 ad hoc module shed light on what people do in their job and how their work is organised, using 11 task indicators, highlighting the implications for job mobility.
A series of reports will explore how the green and digital transitions are reshaping employment, skills, working conditions and industrial relations in key sectors – specifically automotive, construction and tourism – driven by sustainability policies and technological change.
Eurofound will issue its annual European Jobs Monitor report, offering an overview of structural changes in the labour market from 1995 to date. Key monitoring tools such as the European Jobs Monitor (EJM) and the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) will continue to be updated to provide policymakers with data on evolving labour market trends.
Living conditions and quality of life
Eurofound will publish findings on mental health problems in Europe, examining the impact of digital work environments, climate change, inequality and people’s concerns about their economic situation.
The 2025 report on upward convergence will assess whether economic and social disparities between sociodemographic groups are narrowing or widening, with a focus on social fragmentation across the EU.
Research on the digital transformation of social protection systems will explore how digitalisation can improve service delivery while ensuring inclusivity and accessibility.
Public services will be another key area of focus, particularly care services and the role of informal carers. A study aligned with the European Care Strategy will assess new care models and their impact on both professional and informal caregivers.
Eurofound’s upcoming report on the dynamics of wealth inequality in Europe will investigate trends of wealth distribution across Member States.
In response to the green transition, Eurofound will launch a new project to monitor the social impact of the green transition on the cost of living, housing and transport. The research will also explore how these changes shape public attitudes and behaviours around sustainability, including the uptake of renewable energy and electrified transport.
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