For its third edition since 2018, the Crédoc vulnerability observatory indicates that inflation is accompanied by a strong degradation of morale within the population, particularly among young people.
By Béatrice Madeline
Inflation is not just a case of purchasing power. The rise in prices, and singularly those of energy, key to mobility, weighs on morale. The Vulnerability Observatory, created in 2018 by the Research Center for the Study and Observation of Living Conditions (Crédoc) surveyed the French in the summer of 2022, while inflation as a whole reached 6, 1 % in France and around 7 % for food products.
At that time, when prices have started to climb since mid-20121, four out of ten people say they feel “in a vulnerability”. In one year, this proportion has increased by ten points and, in four years, since the launch of the observatory, the progression has been twenty points, according to the results of the barometer published on Saturday 17 December. One person in ten (11 %) says it has felt this fragility for less than a year, or “since prices are increasing”, 12 % connect it rather at the start of the health crisis, one to two years. p>
“We go from one crisis to another, from the Covid crisis to the energy crisis and the inflationary crisis, notes Sandra Hoibian, director general of Crédoc. There have been periods of inflation, by Example at the end of the 1980s, where optimism was higher, especially because wages followed and that it was imprisoned that living conditions were going to improve. “
This vulnerability translates into daily life: difficulty paying housing charges (electricity bills, water and gas in particular), the fact of having to postpone expenses, including food, the fact of not always being able ” Eat the foods that we want “, to limit the diversity of menus, to have to lower heating.
young people more affected
Almost all social categories are concerned; The low incomes and the lower middle classes, the unemployed or isolated, separate or divorced people are, of course, on the front line. But young people concentrate difficulties during this period. Among the under 25s, 53 % say they are vulnerable: it is the most affected age category, while seniors are more preserved (33 %). “Despite all the devices put in place, young people evolve in an increasingly uncertain environment,” decrypts M me hoibian. A constant: not being able to have a car is an aggravating factor in vulnerability.
All social life is affected by this feeling with, in the background, a fear: that of switching to poverty. Among the restrictions that are essential to save money, that of reducing leisure, sports or cultural activities – a behavior that increases by 21 points between January 2019 and July 2022. We reduce visits to family and friends (+ 18 points), we give up medical examinations (+ 15 points) or to carry out administrative procedures, which aggravates non-recourse to social benefits.
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