Why did food hardship rise during the Great Recession? A cross-country analysis of food hardship in Europe

Introduction: Food charity use has rapidly increased in Europe, raising concern about food hardship and health consequences. No studies have systematically examined food hardship or investigated explanatory factors across Europe. We examine within-country trends, and test the hypotheses that economic downturn and rising costs of living underlie rising food hardship, but that these factors are offset by welfare spending. Methods: Data on unemployment, GDP, food price inflation, housing costs, incomes, and welfare spending were compiled for 24 countries from EuroStat over 2003 to 2012. Fixed effect multiple regression analyses were used to examine factors related to food hardship, as indicated by reported inability to afford meat or equivalent. Results: From 2009 to 2012, food hardship rose by an average of 2 percentage points across countries, from a low of 8.7% to 10.9%. There was marked variation however, where food hardship fell in some countries, but rose by as much as 7 percentage points in others, such as Greece. We observed that for every 1 percentage point rise in unemployment, there was a 0.5 percentage point increase in food hardship. Rising housing costs and food prices relative to changes in incomes were also significantly associated with rising food hardship. However, where welfare spending was high, economic hardship and rising living costs had no effect on food hardship (p<0.05 for interaction terms). Discussion: Food hardship has risen across Europe since the Great Recession, but findings suggest that rising food hardship is not an inevitable outcome of economic downturn and rising living costs.