Archive:Europe 2020 indicators - executive summary

Planned article update: August 2017.

This article is part of a set of statistical articles on the Europe 2020 strategy. It provides recent statistics on poverty and social inclusion in the European Union (EU).

Table 1: Europe 2020 headline indicators, EU-28, 2008 and 2011-15 - Source: Eurostat (see dedicated section)

Overview of trends in the Europe 2020 headline indicators

A set of nine headline indicators and additional sub-indicators has been developed to back up the monitoring of the Europe 2020 strategy’s objectives. An analysis of the developments in these indicators since 2008 shows a diverse picture.

The Europe 2020 strategy

Europe 2020 is the EU’s growth and jobs strategy for the current decade, striving to pave the way to a smart, sustainable and inclusive future. The strategy envisages measures to overcome the economic crisis and move beyond it by addressing the structural weaknesses in the European economic model. The final objective is to deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion in the Member States, while reducing the impact on the natural environment.

To reach its objective, the EU has adopted eight ambitious targets in the areas of employment, research and development (R&D), climate change and energy, education and poverty reduction, to be reached by 2020. These have been translated into national targets to reflect the situation and possibilities of each Member State to contribute to the common goal. A set of nine headline indicators and additional sub-indicators gives an overview of how far the EU is to reaching its overall targets.

In 2014, the European Commission published a communication taking stock of the Europe 2020 strategy. It reflects on the challenges and possibilities for meeting the targets adopted four years earlier, in view of adjusting the strategy for the period 2015 to 2020. According to the Commission’s communication, the EU is on track to reach some of its headline targets for 2020 but has fallen behind with regards to others, with the crisis having a sizeable impact.

Since 2008 substantial progress has been made in the area of climate change and energy through the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the increase in the use of renewable energy sources. Positive developments are also visible in the area of education, where the EU is within reaching distance of both headline targets. Larger efforts will be required to get back on track with R&D investment, while meeting the employment and poverty targets will remain challenging.

The analysis in this article aims to shed light on the trends in the headline indicators over the past seven years, from 2008 up to 2014 or 2015 (depending on data availability).

Employment rate

In 2008, employment in the EU for the age group 20 to 64 peaked at 70.3 %, after a period of steady increase. In the following years employment trends reversed as a result of the unfavourable effect of the economic crisis on the European labour market. By 2013 the indicator had fallen to 68.4 %. In 2014, the employment rate started increasing again and by 2015 reached 70.1 % - close to the 2008 level. As a result, in 2015 the distance to the EU 2020 employment target of 75 % had narrowed to 4.9 percentage points.

The continuous fall in employment rates between 2009 and 2013 mostly affected young people, persons with low educational attainment and non-EU nationals. Older people (55 to 64 year olds) were another vulnerable group, as their employment rates grew continuously over the past decade but still remained lower compared to younger age groups. The gender employment gap has narrowed for all age groups since 2002. In 2015, the largest gap was observed for the age group 30 to 34 (14 percentage points).

Additionally, long-term changes in the demographic structure of the EU population add to the necessity of increasing employment rates. Despite a growing population, low fertility rates and increasing life expectancy could result in a shrinking EU labour force and an increasing share of economically inactive persons. An increase in the employment rate, especially for women, older workers and young people, is therefore needed to compensate for the expected decline of the working-age population (aged 20 to 64) by 4.3 million people by 2020.

Gross domestic expenditure on research and development (R&D)

Gross domestic expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP has increased slightly since 2008. In 2014, the indicator was at 2.03 %, compared with 1.85 % in 2008. The increase during the economic crisis of 2008-2009 reflects a wider EU effort to stimulate economic growth by boosting public expenditure on R&D, in combination with decreasing GDP. In 2014, the EU was still 0.97 percentage points below its target for 2020, which calls for increasing combined public and private R&D expenditure to 3 % of GDP.

Investment in R&D is crucial for transforming the EU into a successful and competitive knowledge-based economy. Progress in this regard has been reinforced by an increase in the number of tertiary graduates in science and technology, by 25.5 % between 2008 and 2014. Despite the growth of female tertiary graduates in science over the past few years, women still engage in different fields of study than men and remain under-represented in science and technology fields.

Broadband access and digital skills are essential for the diffusion of knowledge across all sectors of our society. Internet access across the EU has increased substantially, reaching 95 % of enterprises and 80 % of households in 2015. Nevertheless, there is still considerable scope for increasing digital literacy, with almost half of the EU population being insufficiently equipped with digital skills.

In terms of overall R&D expenditure, the EU is still lagging behind its Asian and American competitors. However, European high-tech exports to outside markets increased between 2009 and 2014, mainly driven by growth in the aerospace and pharmaceutical sectors. The EU’s international position in terms of human capital has also improved, surpassing Japan and the United States in the share of tertiary graduates.

Greenhouse gas emissions, share of renewable energy, and energy efficiency

By 2014, emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) across the EU had fallen by 23.0 % compared with 1990 levels. The EU is thus expected to exceed its Europe 2020 target of reducing GHG emissions by 20 % by 2020. By far the strongest single-year drop in GHG emissions since the early 1990s was recorded between 2008 and 2009, when emissions fell by 7.2 % .This swift decline in GHG emissions has mainly been attributed to the economic crisis and the depressed economic activity in many parts of Europe. Progress has been uneven across sectors, with the largest reductions recorded in the manufacturing and construction, as well as the energy industries, while in domestic transport and international aviation and shipping emissions have increased.

The share of renewable energy in gross final energy production, the Europe 2020 strategy’s second climate change and energy target, increased from 11.0 % in 2008 to 16.0 % in 2014. The largest contributors have been solid biofuels and renewable waste, amounting to half of the gross inland consumption of renewable energy in 2014. Hydropower has also remained a large contributor, but its share has declined since 2000. In contrast, the shares of wind and solar energy have increased substantially thanks to effective support schemes and dramatic cost reductions. In 2014, the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption was 4 percentage points below the Europe 2020 target of 20 %.

The EU has made substantial progress towards its energy efficiency objective as well. Between 2008 and 2014 primary energy consumption in the EU fell by 11.0 % to 1 507 million tonnes of oil equivalent, a lower level than in 1990. It would need to fall by a further 1.6 % by 2020 in order to meet the Europe 2020 goal of moving towards a 20 % increase in energy efficiency, which is determined with reference to a business-as-usual projection for 2020. The trend in final energy consumption has closely followed the trend in primary energy consumption but at a lower level, falling from 1 %180 Mtoe in 2008 to 1 %061 Mtoe in 2014. Energy efficiency policies have helped achieve substantial reductions in primary energy consumption. Despite the increase in economic activity in recent years, energy consumption has continued to fall, also supported by warmer than average temperatures.

Early leavers from education and training and tertiary educational attainment

The share of early leavers from education and training, defined as the share of 18 to 24 year olds with at most lower secondary education and not in further education and training, has consistently decreased since 2008, for both men and women. In 2015, the indicator was at 11.0 %, compared with 14.7 % in 2008. Thus, Europe is steadily approaching its headline target for 2020, which envisages reducing the rate of early leavers from education and training to less than 10 %.

Young men are more likely to leave education and training early compared to women, even though their rate has decreased by a larger amount between 2008 and 2015, from 16.6 % to 12.4 %. Figures for women are already below the overall EU target, standing at 9.5 % in 2015. Foreign-born residents are more likely to leave formal education early compared to natives. In the EU, the share of early leavers among migrants in 2015 was almost twice as high as for natives (19.0 % compared with 11.0 %) Improvements can also be observed in the share of 30 to 34 year olds who have attained tertiary education. The share increased continuously between 2008 and 2015, from 31.1 % to 38.7 %. Provided that this positives trend continues, the EU seems to be on track to meeting its target of increasing the share of the population aged 30 to 34 having completed tertiary education to at least 40 % by 2020.

Disaggregated by gender, the data reveal that growth in the share of tertiary graduates has been considerably faster for women, who already met the Europe 2020 target in 2012 and by 2015 reached 43.4 %. Progress has been slower for men: by 2015, only 34.0 % of 30 to 34 year old men had attained tertiary education.

People at risk of poverty or social exclusion

Between 2008 and 2012, the number of people living at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU-27 increased by about 6 million before dropping to 121 million in 2014. In the EU-28 the indicator followed a similar path – the number of people affected increased from 118 million in 2010 to a peak value of 124 million in 2012, before decreasing to about 122 million in 2014. The increase has been largely attributed to the economic crisis of 2008 and the following recessions in a majority of Member States. Despite the cushioning role of automatic stabilisers and other discretionary policies, almost every fourth person in the EU remained at risk of poverty or social exclusion over the period 2010 to 2014.

The most widespread form of poverty in the EU is monetary poverty. In 2014, about 86 million people, representing 17 % of the total EU population, were at risk of poverty after social transfers. The second most frequent form of poverty was severe material deprivation, affecting almost 45 million people or 9 % of all EU citizens. The third dimension is very low work intensity, with almost 42 million people falling into this category in 2014. This equalled 11 % of the total population aged 0 to 59 in the EU.

The three dimensions of poverty and social exclusion covered by the headline indicator have developed unevenly since 2010. The number of severely materially deprived people increased in the period 2010 to 2012, before falling again gradually until 2014. The number of people at risk of poverty after social transfers increased until 2012. It declined slightly in 2013 before rising again in 2014. The number of people living in households with very low work intensity increased over the entire period from 2010 to 2014.

Across all three dimensions of poverty, the most vulnerable groups appear to be the same, namely young people, the unemployed and inactive, single parents, households consisting of only one person, people with low educational attainment, foreign citizens born outside the EU-28, and those residing in rural areas. Of all groups examined, single parents with one or more dependent children faced the highest risk of poverty.

The European Commission aims to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by 20 million by 2020, as compared to the 2008 level . In 2014, the gap to the EU-27 target was about 25 million people. Further efforts would be necessary in order to initiate a positive trend in the indicator for poverty and social exclusion and to meet the Europe 2020 goal.

See also

• Europe 2020 headline indicators

Further Eurostat information

Publications

• Smarter, greener, more inclusive - indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy (also downloadable as online publication)

Main tables

• Europe 2020 headline indicators

Dedicated section

• Europe 2020 indicators

Methodology / Metadata

• Towards robust quality management for European Statistics - Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council COM(2011) 211 final.

Other information

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European statistics

External links

• European Commission website Europe 2020