Risk Sharing When Unemployment Hits: How Policy Design Influences Citizen Support For European Unemployment Risk Sharing (EURS) Policy report

In the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis, proposals to share the risk of unemployment shocks have been high on the political agenda. Welfare states have built-in automatic stabilisers to cushion economic shocks, notably unemployment insurance. The argument with regard to the Eurozone is that a monetary union needs mechanisms to buttress or complement the automatic stabilizers of its member states; support for national unemployment insurance might achieve this. However, are European citizens ready to share the risk of unemployment crises hitting their countries? This report sheds light on that crucial, yet unresolved question by conducting a conjoint survey experiment on public support for European unemployment risk sharing (EURS) among a representative sample of 19641 respondents in 13 European member states in October and November 2018. The conjoint experiment studies citizen preferences for policy proposals, implementing EURS, that vary on six dimensions: (1) generosity, (2) education and training conditions, (3) between-country redistribution, (4) national versus European administration, (5) impact on taxes, and (6) conditions with regard to individual job search effort. Our results show that policy design matters for public support. They also highlight variation across countries and socio-economic and ideological differences among citizens. Most importantly, fundamental opposition to EURS is confined to a small segment of the European population. In all countries in the sample, there are potential majorities for specific policy packages that organize EURS.
A summary of the report (15 pp.) is available in German, French, Italian and Dutch. Click EURS Report and you will find, under the heading Materials, these summaries.