Since the onset of the Great Recession, it could be argued that it is the young who have been hardest hit in their living conditions. This paper offers a comprehensive description of youth living conditions and how they evolved during the recession period. To do so, we develop a synthetic index combining the indicators proposed by experts in the dimensions of Education and Training, Employment and Entrepreneurship, and Social Inclusion, through a multi-criteria approach based on the double reference point method. This technique enriches the debate by shifting the focus to acceptable and desirable thresholds for each indicator and by overcoming limitations inherent in previous youth indexes that allow for total compensation between the indicators, whilst ignoring potential imbalances. Results show that, in a context of convergence in policy instruments across countries during the Great Recession, there was an improvement in education performance, whereas cross-country divergences in terms of youth labour market prospects and social inclusion increased. This evolution has led to a more complex picture which is characterized by greater polarization in the spatial distribution of youth living conditions, with two noticeable poles: north-central Europe as opposed to the south and east of Europe. Differences in institutional configurations in the fields of education and training, active labour market policies, employment protection legislation and welfare provision together with macroeconomic trends, particularly levels of demand for youth labour and fiscal resources, have played an important role in shaping European youth living conditions.

自大萧条爆发以来，可以说是年轻人的生活条件受到的打击最大。本文全面介绍了青年人的生活状况以及他们在经济衰退期间如何演变。为此，我们通过基于双参考点方法的多准则方法，结合了专家在教育培训，就业和企业家精神以及社会包容方面提出的指标，从而开发出综合指数。通过将焦点转移到每个指标的可接受阈值和期望阈值上，以及通过克服以前的青年指标固有的限制（允许在指标之间进行完全补偿而忽略了潜在的失衡），这项技术丰富了辩论。结果表明，在大萧条期间各国政策工具趋同的情况下，教育绩效有所改善，而青年劳动力市场前景和社会包容方面的跨国分歧有所增加。这种演变导致了更为复杂的局面，其特点是青年人生活条件的空间分布更加两极分化，有两个明显的极点：欧洲中北部，而不是欧洲南部和东部。在教育和培训，积极的劳动力市场政策，就业保护立法和福利提供以及宏观经济趋势，特别是对青年劳动力和财政资源的需求水平方面，机构配置方面的差异在塑造欧洲青年生活条件方面发挥了重要作用。