Comparing and Contrasting the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the European Union challenges the use of uncontextualised comparisons of COVID-19 cases and deaths in member states during the period when Europe was the epicentre of the pandemic. This timely study looks behind the headlines and the statistics to demonstrate the value for knowledge exchange and policy learning of comparisons that are founded on an in-depth understanding of key socio-demographic and public health indicators within their policy settings. The book adopts innovative, integrated, multi-disciplinary international perspectives to track and assess a fast-moving topical subject in an accessible format. It offers a template for analysing policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and for using evidence-based comparisons to inform and support policy development.

Comparing and Contrasting the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the European Union challenges the use of uncontextualised comparisons of COVID-19 cases and deaths in member states during the period when Europe was the epicentre of the pandemic. This timely study looks behind the headlines and the statistics to demonstrate the value for knowledge exchange and policy learning of comparisons that are founded on an in-depth understanding of key socio-demographic and public health indicators within their policy settings. The book adopts innovative, integrated, multi-disciplinary international perspectives to track and assess a fast-moving topical subject in an accessible format. It offers a template for analysing policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and for using evidence-based comparisons to inform and support policy development.

The family is currently a controversial topic both within the UK and Europe. While demographic trends seem to suggest that family structures and attitudes within the European Union are converging and that member states are facing similar social problems, their policy responses are very different. This book examines the differences between these national responses and that of the EU as contained in the social chapter. It analyses the key concepts underlying the formulation of family policy and illustrates it with the latest data much of it hitherto unpublished.

While the amount of cross-national comparative research has continued to grow, especially in Europe, remarkably little attention has been devoted to epistemological and methodological questions. Papers in this book by historians, sociologists, economists and political scientists aim to contribute to his insufficiently explored research topic. Drawn from various European countries, they explain how they construct their research objects. They address the role of languages in comparative research and they all try to reach beyond the opposition between universalism and culturalist relativism or particularism. The authors draw on their extensive empirical knowledge to produce a useful instrument for researchers. Their writing will also find important echoes among practitioners of social policies, who are increasingly confronted with international situations and need models to interpret the practical differences they experience.