Government spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the member states of the European has consistently exceeded 45 percent over the period since 1995, reaching over 50 percent of annual production in 1995 and 1996, as well as the crisis years of 2009, 2020, and 2021. Government spending as a share of GDP should automatically expand during recessions and crises, as GDP shrinks, while the 'automatic stabilizers' of unemployment insurance and other welfare benefits expand. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments in the EU also expanded their spending on health care services and economic affairs, as they attempted to support their domestic healthcare systems, while stimulating economic activity in the private sector through targeted subsidies.

Between 1950 and 1980, Sweden's public expenditures increased from 23 percent of its total gross national product* to 62 percent of GNP. Historically in Europe, a large share of public expenditure was directed towards the military, and welfare programs did exist but were given much less of a priority. Following the Second World War, however, the concept of the welfare state emerged in Western Europe (with the Nordic model becoming the most revered in the following decades), and governments began investing more in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social securities. Not only were public funds redirected towards welfare programs in this period, but taxation was also increased to maintain this investment. Perhaps surprisingly, there was relatively little public opposition to higher taxes, which has been attributed to the rate of improvements in quality of life and the rise in disposable income in these decades.

Before the First World War, average national figures were generally between 10 and 12 percent of GNP, and this increased to somewhere between 20 and 30 percent in the 1930s. In the given countries, these figures were similar in 1950, but, as mentioned previously, much of this was due to military spending in the past, whereas the focus had shifted to welfare and reconstruction during the postwar recovery period. All countries shown were investing between 30 and 40 percent of GNP into public expenditure by 1965, but this jumped to more than 60 percent in Sweden and the Netherlands, and over 50 percent in Denmark and Belgium. Countless studies have shown links between public spending and long-term economic stability, and the Northern European countries are shown here rank among the highest when it comes to living standards, education, and happiness.

The annual expenditure on public and private educational institutions per pupil/student compared to GDP per capita relates the resources (e.g. expenditure for personnel, other current and capital expenditure) being devoted to education in public and private educational institutions to the overall economic welfare of a country. It is based on full-time equivalent enrolment. The use of GDP per capita allows the comparison of levels of economic activity of different sized economies (per capita) irrespective of their price levels (in PPS).

Individual-level effects of nonpolitical volunteering and political participation on social well-being.

Descriptive statistics for the central study variables at the individual level (Study 1).

Country-level effects of contextual variables on eudaimonic well-being and cross-level interactions with voluntary participation.

The present study on the historical development of social security in western Europe was created as part of the HIWED project (the abbreviation HIWED means: Historical Indicators of the Western European Democracies, Project leader: Wolfgang Zapf and Peter Flora), supported by the Volkswagen Stiftung. The main result is a comprehensive data manual about the political, social, and economic developments of western Europe in the period of 1815 and 1975.Jens Alber’s study with comparative statistics on the historical development of social security in Western European countries in a historical perspective is the ninth chapter of the first volume of the data manual. The focus is the quantitative description of the growth of social spending and of population groups covered by the social programs and services. The data collection includes data on revenues and expenditures of the accident, health, pension and unemployment insurance for 13 Western European countries since the introduction of the programs, as far as they were available in the national statistical yearbooks. The financial data are structured by type of expenditure and revenue categories. The social expenditure ratio is used as a measure of the socio-political efforts of a country.In this measure the social spending are set in relation to the national product (GDP). Finally, the description of changes in membership data (i.e. the group of people who are members of the four social insurances) is another data focus. Aside from collecting data Jens Alber published a macro-sociological study with analyzes of the development of social security in Western Europe. Jens Alber: Income Maintenance: The data manual´s 9th chapter “… presents data on the development of the major public social programmes. ‘Social security’ is defined following the practice of the International Labour Office. It embraces the four social insurance schemes (occupational injuries, health, pension, and unemployment insurance), public health, family allowances, social assistance, benefits to war victims, and the special transfers to civil servants. Data on the coverage of the four social insurance schemes are presented for the period from the introduction of a given type of insurance programme to 1975. Data on the expenditure and receipts of social security programmes are reported for the period from 1949 to 1974. Data are mainly presented country by country, in the form of tables and graphs. The chapter begins, however, with six comparative tables with selected ratios for all 13 countries. The first three of these comparative tables give ratios of various expenditure categories as percentages of gross domestic product (social security expenditure and social insurance and public health expenditure, both including administrative costs; benefit expenditure, excluding these costs for pensions, health, unemployment, and family allowances). The fourth table shows the part taken by public authorities and employers in the financing of social security and the last two of the comparative tables give coverage ratios, i.e. the members of insurance schemes (pension, medical benefit, occupational injuries and unemployment insurance) as a percentage of the labour force.The comparative part is followed by a series of tables and graphs with the national data on social security expenditure, its financing, and coverage of insurance schemes for each country. The first table gives the aggregate amounts of social security and social insurance expenditure, as well as its breakdown according to major programmes (public assistance, family allowances, public health, and the fur insurance schemes for health, pensions, occupational injuries and unemployment). All figures pertain to net expenditure, excluding transfers among single schemes. They refer either to calendar years or – in the case of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom - to financial years ending in the stated calendar year. Expenditures for the single programmes do not add up to the reported total social security expenditure, because the outlays for a war victims and public employees are not included in the tables. Information on the percentage of total social security benefit expenditure spent for public employees, however, is contained in one of the graphs. Total social insurance expenditure corresponds to the sum of the four reported insurance schemes. The tables on the financing of social security report the receipts for total social security and total social insurance for the period from 1949 to 1974, as well as the receipts for the four major social insurance programmes in selected years. In addition to the aggregate figures, the percentage distribution of receipts by source of contribution is given. The three major sources are: insured persons, employers, and public authorities (summing up contributions by central government, receipts from local government bodies and special taxes allocated to social security). The last category, “other”, in...

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the country-level predictors (Study 3).

Government debt as a share of gross domestic product has risen for almost all of Europe's largest economies since the mid-20th century. While until the 1970s it was common for European countries to have debt levels of less than 20 percent of their GDP, with the onset of economic crises related to international financial instability and oil price shocks, the long-term slowdown of economic growth in Europe, and the substantial public spending burdens which states had incurred due to the expansion of welfare and social services, European governments began to amass significant amounts of debt.

Which European countries are the most indebted? Italy stands out as the country in Europe which has experienced the largest secular increase in its government debt level, with the southern European country having debt worth 1.4 times its GDP in 2022. Spain, the United Kingdom, and France have also experienced long-run increase in their debt levels to between 90 and 100 percent in 2022. Germany and Turkey, on the other hand, have experienced more gradual increases in their public debt, with both countries having debt worth less than half their GDP. Russia stands as an outlier, due to the fact that its debt level has fallen dramatically since the 1990s. After the eastern European country's transition from communism and particularly after the financial crisis it experienced in 1998, the Russian state has severely cut back on public expenditure, while also having little need to borrow due to the state ownership of the country's vast natural resources.

Results from ML estimation of measurement models.

This statistic presents the Gross Gaming Revenues (GGR) as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in selected European countries in 2019. The GGR is a key metric used within the gambling industry to refer to the difference between the amount of money received by a given agent, and the amount of money payed out by the agent. Sales revenue can be thought of as a comparable metric from outside the gambling industry. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the market value of all goods and services produced within a region over a given time period. Although more often described in terms of its rate of growth, it is frequently used as an indicator of a country’s economic stability, and by extension, social welfare. As a result both national and international policy decisions are frequently made with the primary purpose of elevating GDP. The connection between the economic stability of a region, as described by its GDP, and the extent to which is describes social welfare is highly contested. The most common critique relates to the fact that many of the goods and services that contribute to GDP have a negative effect on social welfare. Polluting chemicals and processes, nuclear warheads, cigarette industry, the destruction of natural environments and many other goods and services, that clearly undermine prosperity, all contribute to the GDP metric. Despite these critiques there is clearly an intuitive relationship between the goods and services to which we assign value and to the goods and services we feel improve our lives. GGR as a share of GDP GGR from regulated operators in Greece were estimated to be approximately 2.2 billion euros in 2019, accounting for 1.16 percent of the country’s GDP. Similarly the GGR from regulated operators in Italy accounted for 1.06 percent its GDP. This statistic clearly illustrates that for many countries the gambling industry is responsible for a significant proportion of GDP. Although the social costs and benefits of gambling are not discussed here, this statistic provides a compelling incentive to investigate the effect of the gambling industry on social welfare.