The Social Dimension of the Economic Crisis in Europe - Tober, Silke;Kramer, David;Langa Herrero, Alfredo;Stapf-Finé, Heinz
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In 2007/08 the industrialized world faced one of the major economic crises the world has ever seen. Due to the fact that the states invested a lot of money to overcome the economic breakdown Europe is suffering since then a debt crisis. The social consequences are tremendous, in some countries mostly affected by the crisis one is speaking of a lost generation of young people, jobless and without perspective. But even in the countries with better economic performance discontent of the population suffering from austerity measures is rising and the question of a more just redistribution of wealth…mehr

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Produktbeschreibung
In 2007/08 the industrialized world faced one of the major economic crises the world has ever seen. Due to the fact that the states invested a lot of money to overcome the economic breakdown Europe is suffering since then a debt crisis. The social consequences are tremendous, in some countries mostly affected by the crisis one is speaking of a lost generation of young people, jobless and without perspective. But even in the countries with better economic performance discontent of the population suffering from austerity measures is rising and the question of a more just redistribution of wealth is fervently discussed.What is the perception of social work academics and professionals about all this? One might assume that social work is concerned in two ways: First the social situation of the raising number of clients should be of concern. And second the profession itself is victim of social spending cuts thus facing even deteriorating working conditions. In this situation one would assume that the economic and financial crisis and its consequences would be an important point of discussion. But the contrary is true, the profession continues with business as usual.This was the starting point and motivation of the team of the Europe Institute for Social Work to dedicate the Summer School 2012 to the subject "The Social Dimension of the Economic Crisis in Europe". A couple of highly experienced experts have been participating and wrote down their findings in the following articles.First of all it was necessary to get an overview on the economic background of the crisis. Silke Tober in the article "Reluctant Lone Ranger: The ECB in the Euro Area Crisis" works out that the current crisis is the result of drastic austerity measures implemented to restore fiscal sustainability. She characterizes the posture of European governments towards overcoming the crisis as doing "too little, too late". Since governments and ECB are falsely obsessed by the idea that lack of fiscal discipline is the major cause of the crisis (instead of identifying them in major economic unbalances), they give the patient even more of the false medicine. Thus restoring the economies is only possible if this false thinking can be overcome.This can only be achieved if the discussion is not only led by economic experts. Thus the article by David Kramer and Heinz Stapf-Finé "Impacts of the crisis on the working conditions of social workers" starts by explaining the main reasons of the economic crisis in a language easy to understand. Three are the main reasons: major economic unbalances, a redistribution of income and wealth from the poor to the rich and deregulation of the international financial markets.The consequences for social workers are: the already poor working conditions of the profession are getting worse.Christine Labonté-Roset in her contribution "Social Marginalisation and Poverty" treats the effects of the economic crisis on social cohesion and social exclusion. She states that social work as the profession most closely linked with social welfare needs new concepts of empowering marginalized populations. She shows two successful examples how social work can work in a creative, cooperative and democratic way with excluded people."Access to the labor market with special consideration of youth unemployment" is the title of an article written by Alfredo Langa Herrero. Doing a brief study on the case of Spain he shows that as a consequence of austerity policy half of the young people are unemployed and have no perspective for the future. Mostly affected are low and middle skilled people, foreigners and women. He claims that the social consequences of the crisis must be considered in order to avoid dangerous political collateral effects.The case study of Spain clearly shows that if every second youngster is without a job the problem is a structural one (and not the fault of each individual). Thus the traditionally client centered social work comes to its limit