Arnstein Aassve leads the Horizon Europe project "Futures - Towards a Resilient Future of Europe", Bocconi University, Milan
Andreas Edel is the Executive Secretary of Population Europe, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock/Berlin
The first decades of the 21st century are often described as an era of permanent crises. Think of the collapse of the global financial system in 2008 and the ensuing economic recession. Think of the unexpected immigration flow to Europe in 2015. Most recently, our continent faced the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Russian aggression against Ukraine since 2022 and the violent conflicts in the Middle East. Not least, all these occurrences are framed by an alarming frequency of natural hazard events.
Looking deeper, however, these shocks are symptoms of unresolved or underestimated longer-term challenges. In the above cases:
- overcoming the dysfunctions of the global banking system
- revising European immigration rules to improve coordination among Member States
- preparing the public health and epidemiological information system for new diseases and health prevention needs
- responding to a fundamental shift toward a multipolar global security system
- adapting our societies and their citizens to the consequences of climate change
These shocks and challenges are overlaid by the ‘megatrends’ of our time, which reinforce the sense of an era of overwhelmingly rapid transformations, such as technological change, most recently driven by the rise of artificial intelligence, but also urbanisation, demographic change, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and scarcity of (human) resources.
The accumulation of shocks, challenges and trends, even within a single generation, supports the notion that we are living in a ‘polycrisis’. The future is perceived as more uncertain, which for many people, is associated with elevated fears of health deterioration and socio-economic decline, and in the worst cases can even lead to mental instability. At the societal level, we face a situation in which the institutions of international cooperation, democracy, and the welfare state appear to be under serious internal and external threat.
The "normal" may need to change
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the notion of resilience has become popular: it is now widely adopted in research, policy debate, and, not least, public discourse. Intuitively, resilience lends itself to the idea of strengthening societal, institutional and individual capacities to cope with potential crisis scenarios. However, the concept of resilience has remained vague.
It is therefore useful to be clear about where the concept comes from. Ecology refers to the idea of systemic resilience. That is, when a system is taken out of its steady state by a perturbation (i.e., a shock), resilience is a measure of the extent to which the system returns to normal. Ecologists would point out, however, that the "normal" may need to change in order for the system to continue. Social resilience, then, refers to how societies (i.e. the system) can return to normal after a shock, such as an armed conflict or natural disaster.
But as we can often see, returning to normal can only happen through intervention: the ability to learn is an important characteristic of resilient systems. This also means that societies must be ready to transform.
All this raises an important question: what do we mean by ‘normal’ ? Social resilience relates to the question of who is primarily concerned. Typically, this would refer to the members of our societies. But can we put them all in the same basket? Often it is the most vulnerable groups that need to be empowered to adapt to an impending crisis. Resilience could then be seen as a basic feature of advanced welfare states, where the stronger shoulders take care of those in need.
Resilience also works in more liberal approaches to social policy, where risks need to be shared fairly across society, but in principle among all members. In both approaches, societal solidarity is an essential contribution to resilience, as it ensures in the longer perspective that society as a whole is much better off in times of crisis - and that social cohesion can be maintained even through times of hardship.
However, creating a more resilient society does not mean creating more ‘comfort zones’, quite the opposite, as a ‘crisis’ by definition fundamentally challenges the certainties to which we have become accustomed.
Intergenerational fairness is critical
Responding to crises requires a risk assessment and decisions on how to allocate resources. For example, during the pandemic, lockdowns helped protect older and frail people, but put the younger generation at a significant disadvantage; while during the financial crises, decision-makers had to assess which sectors could be saved with available public funds and which had to be left to survive on their own. In this sense, a more resilient society is able to prioritise the investment of usually scarce resources for the most effective crisis management, ideally before a crisis occurs.
This must take into account not only the potential socio-economic consequences of such decisions for specific population groups, but also socio-demographic outcomes such as changes in family living conditions, fertility decisions, health patterns and even life expectancy. It must also consider the potential threats to social cohesion and democratic resilience: if the social and regional distribution of resources is perceived as unjustified and grossly unfair, this could lead to the emergence of 'left behind' narratives and divisive movements, destabilising the social fabric - and ultimately the political system.
In all of this, intergenerational fairness is critical. In a few years the baby-boomers – those aged 50 to 65 in Europe will retire. Currently, this is by far the largest cohort – much larger than the current cohorts of youth. It is also a very wealthy generation. One worry is that as they go into retirement, it is the next generation who has to pay the bill: through working much longer and possibly receiving less generous pension payments compared to the generation before them.
The experience of the pandemic showed that in many countries we do not have sufficiently developed infrastructures and data accessibility to respond quickly to urgent calls in a crisis. Each crisis has helped to improve institutional responsiveness, for example through more advanced systems of international collaboration, better interaction at the science-policy interface, and greater use of data-driven and digital crisis management tools. Again, the ability to learn – and consequently to act on past experience – is critical to improving resilience.
However, many shortcomings remain and much remains to be done. For example, much better use can be made of mobile phones and social media to reach the most vulnerable in crises or urgent life-threatening situations, and to better understand the societal trends underlying fundamental changes. In other words, resilience is also a process where policy makers together with scientists constantly strive for improving our societies.
Work better, connect better, care better
Ultimately, none of this will make much difference unless we also focus on individual resilience. The key determinants of individual resilience comes through education, work and social networks. In light of this, people need to be able to adapt to potential crises, and this particularly affects their closest living arrangements in their families, neighbourhoods and communities, and the way they are able to participate in society.
Those who are embedded in a social life are more likely to seek support and survive a crisis, and the increase in loneliness and mental health problems needs to be addressed urgently. The (re)creation of social spaces is increasingly important where such places (such as the former town hall, local club or churches) no longer exist.
As we spend most of our days at work, more attention also needs to be given to how we can make labour markets and working conditions more resilient, taking into account the indirect effects on other areas of resilience.
For example, there are two sides to homeworking in terms of individual resilience: It helps reduce risks in the event of a pandemic or other shocks that affect people's mobility. It allows for a better balance between family and work. At the same time, it can potentially reduce social interaction in ways that increase social isolation. Short-sighted crisis management can also have serious implications for the labour market in terms of attracting human resources from abroad and developing new human resources through education at a time of growing skills shortages.
Most importantly, decision-makers from the European to the regional and local level must be prepared to mitigate the financial losses caused by crises. As we have learned from other crises, the worst-case scenarios of rising unemployment and short-time work can be offset, whether through retraining for other sectors, enforcing circular labour mobility, or social investments to help people cope with the financial consequences.
The fact is that resilience should not be seen as a buzzword, but as a potential game changer in preparing our societies, our welfare states and their individuals to better respond to all kinds of future crises.
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