Living and working in Europe

Foreword

What does financial resilience look like in Europe in 2025? For some, it means the confidence that comes with stable employment, a home that is affordable and savings that can absorb an unexpected shock. For others, it means something more precarious: getting by, month to month, with little margin for error.

This yearbook tells the story of that divide. Drawing on the latest round of Eurofound’s Living and Working in the EU e-survey, the 2024 European Working Conditions Survey and a rich body of research published over the past year, it shows how cost-of-living pressures, housing insecurity and fragile mental well-being continue to shape the lived experience of millions of Europeans – unevenly across income groups, age cohorts and household types. These pressures are unfolding against a backdrop of continued geopolitical instability, including Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and the escalating instability in the Middle East and beyond, which compound economic uncertainty and test European solidarity.

The evidence shows that overall improvements can coexist with deepening inequalities beneath the surface. Inflation has eased and employment remains broadly stable, yet economic strain has intensified among low- and middle-income households. Minimum wages have converged remarkably, yet what they can buy – especially in terms of housing – varies sharply across Member States. Job quality has improved on several indicators, yet psychosocial pressures and gender gaps persist. Mental well-being has not recovered from successive crises.

This edition is structured around three connected themes: work (job quality, wages, ageing and sectoral restructuring), quality of life (housing, mental health and institutional trust) and inequality (the gender pay gap and the distribution of wealth). The thread running through the report is that these pressures are interconnected. Housing costs erode purchasing power gains. Unpaid care constrains participation. Financial strain feeds poor mental health, which undermines the trust on which democratic societies depend. The EU’s policy ambitions – from the Competitiveness Compass to the European Affordable Housing Plan and the forthcoming Anti-Poverty Strategy – recognise these connections. Whether these policies translate into meaningful change will depend on implementation.

Eurofound’s role is to provide evidence to support that implementation. The data in these pages describe pressures that are real and unevenly shared. They also describe a Union with the institutional capacity, the policy frameworks and the evidence base to respond. How it does so is the question that matters most.

Executive Director, Ivailo Kalfin