Rising inequality: A material perspective on the Great Recession in the European Union

Anke Schaffartzik*, Juan Antonio Duro

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The 2007/8 economic crisis and the global Great Recession led to widespread turmoil and instability. In Europe, unprecedented reductions in per capita resource use were crisis-driven rather than the result of deliberate policies. This study examines material use patterns in the EU-27 from 2000 to 2020, covering the period before and the onset of the Great Recession. We find that average material consumption in Europe decreased and has since stagnated, although this trend is uneven, with growing underlying inequalities, as measured using the Theil index of metabolic rates. The patterns in construction materials especially shape overall resource use trajectories. The role of infrastructure and services provisioning, especially where these are fossil-fueled, emerges as key in understanding these patterns. Geographic groupings of EU member states—Northern, Eastern, Mediterranean, and Central—further explain the inequalities that deepened following the recession. These emerging disparities raise important questions about what underpins the European project in a Union in which growth or sustained wealth in some member states systematically coincides with what can only be described as collapse elsewhere.

Original languageEnglish
Article number108417
JournalEcological Economics
Volume227
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2025

Keywords

  • EU-27
  • Economic crisis
  • Inequality
  • Material accounting
  • Metabolic rate
  • Theil index

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Rising inequality: A material perspective on the Great Recession in the European Union'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this