Working, Yet Poor

Project Information

WorkYP

Grant agreement ID: 870619

DOI

10.3030/870619

Project closed

EC signature date 8 November 2019

Start date 1 February 2020

End date 31 January 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 3 244 294,00

EU contribution

€ 3 244 294,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG
Luxembourg

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WorkYP (Working, Yet Poor)

Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2023-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project Working and Yet Poor (WorkYP) is focused on the increasing social trend of working people at risk or below the poverty line. The Consortium will devote its research to explore the reasons of such phenomenon and elaborate recommendations to the EU and MSs legislators, to enhance the goals proclaimed in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The WorkYP Project analyses seven representative Countries (Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Poland), selected on the basis of their geographical area, as well as their different social systems and legal orders. In each such Country, the WorkYP Project has identified four clusters of particularly Vulnerable and Underrepresented Persons (VUP Groups), which disadvantaged conditions impede full enjoyment of EU citizenship. Such VUP Groups are: a) low wage workers; b) solo and bogus self-employed; c) flexible work contracts (fixed-term, agency work, involuntary part-time); d) casual/zero-hours/gig-economy workers.
During its life-span of three years, the WorkYP consortium has produced 29 deliverables that have been disseminated to the scientific community, policy-makers and the general public.
The project has proposed a reconceptualisation of EU citizenship into EU social citizenship and has attached to it a number of entitlements related to social rights.
Several policy proposals have been put forward, addressing both the EU and national legislators, with the aim to tackle in-work poverty from a holistic perspective, thus considering its diverse determinants and causes.
The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has increased societal inequalities but served as testbed for Member states' social legislation. In most countries, financial transfers from the state helped reducing the levels of in-work poverty and shield vulnerable households from sinking into material deprivation. In a post-Covid scenario, still reliable Eurostat data are missing, which does not allow to draw medium-long term conclusions over the efficacy of specific policies tested during the pandemic years.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The WorkYP project has achieved all objectives that were planned and has substantially contributed to advance the scientific knowledge on in-work poverty in Europe.
A) The first impact achieved by the WorkYP Project has been to clarify and advance the state of the art and the normative content of EU citizenship through concrete and targeted recommendations, policy proposals, and actions addressed to EU Institutions, MSs, and civil society stakeholders to implement social rights and foster upward convergence.
B) At theoretical level, the WorkYP project has elaborated a sound and easily understandable concept of EU citizenship, clarifying the social protections embedded therein and establishing the theoretical justification for making such social rights a truly functional aspect of EU citizenship. While the concept itself of EU social citizenship was not new, the project has made the combat of in-work poverty functional to the full realization of being citizens in the EU. The isopolitical nature of EU citizenship has led the project’s deliverables to further reinforce this idea.
C) Through building a coherent and comprehensive legal framework for strengthening the EU social dimension, the WorkYP consortium has substantially contributed to highlight the necessary strategies, including best practices, to foster recognition and defence of the social dimension of EU citizenship, while at the same time supporting upward convergence across MSs.
D) At a more practical level, the project activities have promoted enhanced protection of the social rights of the working poor, particularly the right to “fair and adequate wages” enshrined in the EPSR, through the identification of best practices.
E) From a civil society and political perspectives, the project has contributed to initiate an EU-scale discourse on in-work poverty as societal issue, on the main reasons for its spread, and on its negative societal impacts. This has fuelled the emergence of policy actions that both the MSs and the EU have started to undertake to prevent in-work poverty.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The WorkYP project is designed to have an impact on EU and national policy-making process and to explore the ways to reduce in-work poverty at all levels. Project aligns with some EU initiatives that have among their aims the reduction of in-work poverty, such as the EU Directive on adequate minimum wages. Another important goal of the Project is to raise awareness on the topic of in-work poverty among academics, lawmakers and general public.

Two major international events marked the scientific impact of the WorkYP Project. The WorkYP Midterm Conference (organized in Bologna, Italy on 22 March 2022) and the WorkYP Final Conference (that took place in Brussels, Belgium on 26 January 2023) provided a platform to discuss progress of WorkYP and disseminate its outcomes towards relevant stakeholders at the international level. Both events were organized in hybrid mode (in-presence and online) to maximize their outreach.
Major highlights among the deliverables created during the second reporting period include D3.5 on Comparative analytical models, D4.3 on Fair and adequate wages, D4.4 on EU social citizenship, and D5.3 and D5.4 on policy proposals at EU and national level.
In addition to the WorkYP events and deliverables, WorkYP partners also conducted a wide array of dissemination activities (see in particular chapter 1.2.6 for more details) to further raise awareness on the topics covered by the project. Among the key results of the project are especially two major books , several scientific publications and articles in top class journals at EU and national level (including five special issues of scientific journals) as well as other entries in public media channels. Moreover, the WorkYP consortium prepared and distributed 5 WorkYP Newsletters with project updates (always made available on the project’s website) and compiled a final brochure, summarizing the key findings of the project, that was dispersed at the WorkYP Final Conference.

WorkYP kick-off reading brochure

WorkYP kick-off reading report

WorkYP final conference

WorkYP final conference

WorkYP final conference

WorkYP kick-off discussion

WorkYP final conference

WorkYP final conference