Multidimensional economic mobility reveals uneven post-pandemic recovery in Europe

Economic mobility landscapes reveal institutional resilience to shocks | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Economic mobility landscapes reveal institutional resilience to shocks Isaak Mengesha, Nik Brouw, Peter Sloot, Egbert Van Nes, Marten Scheffer, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7721691/v3 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 3 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Poverty research has long theorized “welfare basins” and tipping points but lacked a data-driven approach to locate them or to test how policy sequencing shifts trajectories. Our “economic landscape” framework fills that gap. Here, we introduce a Markov chain framework that models welfare transitions across twenty-two European countries using two decades (2004 - 2024) of longitudinal household data. This approach constructs multidimensional “economic landscapes” spanning income, education, and health, revealing stable welfare basins, tipping points, and optimal escape pathways from low welfare. By integrating multiple dimensions, our framework captures threshold effects whereby modest shocks can entrench disadvantage. Our analysis predicts key metrics, including poverty duration, efficient mobility pathways, and the profound impact of COVID-19 on social resilience. Post-pandemic escape times from low-income and health states increased by 0.56 years on average, with greater variability across countries than pre-COVID. We find that the pandemic disruption reshaped welfare basins, with European countries requiring 2 to 10 years to restore pre-pandemic welfare levels. Crucially, we find that sequencing matters: prioritizing improvements in health and education before income yields more effective poverty alleviation. Metric-agnostic and non-parametric, this tool enables policymakers and organizations worldwide to apply their own data for forward-looking poverty reduction strategies, transforming poverty alleviation into a dynamic design problem. Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Economics Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Interdisciplinary studies Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Socioeconomic scenarios Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 3 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7721691","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":547132716,"identity":"6f080f98-8c6a-4d31-b4b8-b48f7a28334e","order_by":0,"name":"Isaak 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