This talk surveys and analyses welfare consequences of the Great Recession in Europe and shows how the burdens of the crisis were shared, based on wide-ranging comparative studies of 30 countries and deeper analyses of 9 country cases in the book Welfare and the Great Recession: A Comparative Study (Oxford, 2019).

The approach is grounded in classical theories about crisis responses and relates changing financial hardship to institutional characteristics, such as welfare regimes and welfare generosity, as well as to policy reactions during the crisis period (stimulus versus austerity, social protection emphasis and redistribution). The study shows the importance of the welfare state and government policies for sheltering populations against level of living consequences of serious economic contraction and for distributing the burdens in a crisis situation.