ABSTRACT
In chapter 5, Martin Heidenreich, Sven Broschinski and Matthias Pohlig discuss economic, political and cultural-cognitive influences on inner-European social inequalities and their perception. The common market has especially contributed to a decades-long economic convergence among the EU Member States. Since the financial and eurozone crises, however, income inequalities between Northern and Southern EU Member States have been rising again. In addition, income inequalities within EU Member States are growing, in particular in the Southern countries. As a consequence of the political management of the eurozone crisis, the already high levels of labour market segmentation – particularly in the Southern European labour markets – continued to grow during the eurozone crisis. Low-skilled and younger employees are strongly negatively affected by the monetary union in which the labour market has become the main buffer against economic shocks. On the cognitive-cultural dimension, transnational standards of evaluation and also the impact of EU decisions on labour markets shape perceptions of economic stress. Thus, we observe a clear and sometimes negative impact of European integration on the life circumstances of Europeans. This may explain the erosion of support for the EU.
