Unemployment in the industrialized nations of the world declined again last year - and is now below the level of the times before the global financial crisis of 2009. For the first time, however, the share of the poor in many of these countries is increasing. This is the result of the "Social Justice Index 2019" of the Bertelsmann Foundation.
On average, the unemployment rate for the 41 surveyed states of the EU and the industrialized countries' club OECD currently stands at 5.3 percent - in 2008 it was still 5.7 percent. But the poverty rate has increased or remained the same in 25 states.
This development can also be observed in Germany. From 2013 to 2018, the poverty rate has increased from 9.4% to 9.8%, the authors note - choosing a poverty threshold of 50% of the median income. In the same period, employment in the Federal Republic has risen sharply.
With the Social Justice Index, the Bertelsmann Foundation annually examines social justice in industrialized countries using 46 criteria in six categories: Poverty Prevention, Labor Market, Education, Health, Non-discrimination and Intergenerational Justice. In the first five places, states of Northern Europe are landing throughout the year: Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Germany is in tenth place - better placed than Switzerland or Austria.
If one looks at the rankings in the individual categories, Germany ends up in the upper midfield, with one exception - in terms of intergenerational justice, it is even slightly below the average of the OECD and EU member states. For example, the researchers rated access to the labor market better, despite the job boom of the past decade in 14 other states.
However, according to the study, social justice is far more negative than in the Federal Republic, and not only in comparatively economically weak countries such as Mexico, Bulgaria or Greece. The US only reaches place 36 - no other state fails so much in the prevention of poverty. South Korea is ranked 34th, and here too the fight against poverty works badly, non-discrimination and social inclusion even worse.
At one point, Germany stands out from the majority of other industrialized countries: at 7.6 percent, children and adolescents are less likely to be poor than seniors (rate: 9.7 percent) - at least if the poverty threshold is 50 percent of the median income. In Germany, the threshold of 60 percent is more common, where child poverty is slightly higher than poverty in old age.
