Have Europe's welfare states abandoned the young to pay the old?

May 25, 2018

A man walking with the help of a cane passes a family on a street in London October 18, 2013. Britain's Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a speech at the National Children and Adults Services (NCAS) conference on Friday that it is a national shame that "there are 800,000 people in England who are chronically lonely", quoting the Campaign to End Loneliness for the figure, according to local media. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor (BRITAIN - Tags: SOCIETY HEALTH)

Although welfare pending is biased towards the elderly, spending within society and families as a whole is much more biased towards children. Image: REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

Pieter Vanhuysse

Professor of Politics and Public Policy, Department of Politics and Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark

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Spending on children's education averaged between 0.4% and 0.6% of GDP in Europe during the first decade of the 21st century.

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