Ivailo Kalfin

Eurofound does research.

We are researching on the living and working conditions in Europe.

We are comparing the countries, the member states of the European Union.

We are looking at new developments like what happens at work with the digitalization, what are the problems in the different sectors of the economy, why there are shortages.

We try to explain this, why there is no desire or interest of the labor force to join some of the sectors.

We look at the public services that are very much linked to, for example, people kept at home to care about family members rather than going to work.

So we look at housing, we look at the care sector.

And again, we make cross-border pan-European analysis.

So you can compare the different countries for how they fare.

That's a very good question.

Unfortunately, the answer cannot be yes or no.

I mean, it's a bit more than that.

First, I don't think that Europe should follow anybody else's model.

I mean, if we try to become more Americans than the Americans or more Chinese than Chinese to catch up, it's not going to work.

Europe has a very unique social model and we would say that this is part of the competitive advantages of Europe.

So I would look at the social model as an asset rather than as a burden for the Europeans.

And I can give you some very tangible examples.

I mean, the cost of inaction for the women in Europe outside of the labor market is 400 billion euro a year.

Yes, and this is very conservative estimate.

So what we put there, this is data that is taken from Eurostat.