europe

  1. Maciamo

    Economy Mega construction projects underway in Europe

    Here are some of the biggest construction projects at the moment.
  2. Maciamo

    Comparison of teachers' salaries across Europe

    Euronews : Real teacher salaries in Europe are down. Which countries pay the highest and lowest wages? This article has a very detailed analysis of teachers' salaries at pre-school, primary and secondary level by country, comparing: Average annual gross actual salaries Annual gross statutory...
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    Sustainability Beef consumption slightly decreasing in many European countries

    About 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the methane emitted from cattle flatulence. Additionally, large swathes of the Amazon rainforest are being destroyed (usually burned) to expand cattle ranching. Tropical deforestation itself is responsible for 10% of global warming, and...
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    Society Evolution of LGBT rights in Europe from 2014 to 2024

    LGBT rights have come a long way since 2001 when the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage. Many Western European countries followed suit soon afterwards and gay marriage has been adopted by even more nations, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, in the...
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    Society Germany to legalise cannabis from 1st April 2024 (soon after Malta and Luxembourg)

    The Guardian: Germany legalises possession of cannabis for personal use The new law will allow the growth of up to three plants for private consumption, holding 50g of cannabis at home, or 25g in public. This makes Germany the third European Union member state to legalise cannabis for personal...
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    Society Internet penetration increased significantly from 2019 to 2021

    It may be due to the Covid-19 effect or just the economy catching up, but in only two years many countries have seen their percentage of Internet users rise quite a lot, as can be seen on the two maps below. If data is correct, the share of Internet users dropped in a few countries though...
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    Society How the prevalence of modern slavery changed in Europe from 2018 to 2023

    I have just updated the map of modern slavery based on the Global Slavery Index. There are some interesting evolutions. In 2018, slavery was almost completely absent from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria. However in 2023, that was only the case of Norway. The other...
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    Economy Social security benefits of an average worker as percentage of earnings

    Here is a new map showing the social security benefits of an average worker as a percentage of their previous earnings in the OECD. The beneficiaries in question are retired workers, disabled workers, and aged widows and widowers. This data does not include unemployment benefits. The most...
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    Health Obesity rates decreased across most of Europe from 2016 to 2024

    This map is based on the data from the CIA World Factbook as reported on Wikipedia. The percentages indicated for the increase of decrease in obesity rates are the difference between the rates for 2016 and for 2024. For example, in the United Kingdom the rate decreased from 27.8% in 2016 to...
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    Europe This is how train stations should be designed

    Trains are a great way to travel around Europe and new high-speed lines are being built all the time. Switzerland is the best country overall when it comes to train, be it for the punctuality, cleanliness of trains and stations, organisation or ease of use. The Netherlands probably comes second...
  11. Coriolan

    Politics Redesigning the borders of Europe and the Middle East

    I was wondering what Europe would look like if the various separatist movements had their way. I checked the list of active separatist movements in Europe and selected only the regions with reasonable claims of independence based on the percentage of population supporting independence. This is...
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    Economy Countries that do not use credit scores (e.g. for credit cards)

    Over 10 years ago I wrote an article called What differentiates Europeans from Americans: the cultural gap across the Atlantic. I last updated it 5 years ago to add some more differences I had forgotten. One thing I did not mention, as it's not strictly speaking a difference between the US and...
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    Economy Personal income tax rates by country (Europe, USA, Israel and Japan)

    Tax rates vary hugely between countries. When it comes to personal income tax, some countries have flat rates regardless of income size, while others have progressive rates. But while some progressive rates start from 0%, others start much higher (like in Belgium, from 25%). Some countries have...
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    Economy Gap between GDP per capita and actual salaries

    GDP per capita is often used as a proxy to determine how much people earn in average in a country. In many cases it can be a relatively good approximation, but sometimes it's completely wrong. This is because the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of all the money produced in a country...
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    Economy Map of showing share of banks with mobile apps in and around Europe

    Here is my latest map based on data from the World Bank. The map shows the percentage of people aged 15+ who have an account with a bank or other financial institution that provides mobile money services. It doesn't necessarily mean that those people are using mobile banking or other mobile...
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    Economy The USA looks like a developing country in many ways. Here is why.

    I have been meaning to start a thread like this for many years. I thought it might be too provocative, but I see how many Americans themselves are dissatisfied with their own country and the situation seems to be getting constantly worse. To many outside observers it has been clear for quite...
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    Eurobarometer shows percentage of Europeans who identify with being European

    Tautalus posted an interesting graph showing what percentage of Europeans identified with their nationality and/or "Europeanness". This dates back to 2015, so for more up to date information I checked the latest Eurobarometer on Values and identities of EU citizens (published in November...
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    Major high-speed railways under construction in Europe

    The European Union has been encouraging the development of the Trans-European high-speed rail network (TEN-R) for over two decades. The idea is to link most of Europe's major cities with highspeed trains so as to reduce air travel as much as possible by 2030 in order to help achieve the goals in...
  19. Maciamo

    Society Year of introduction of electronic ID cards in Europe

    Some 70 countries worldwide now use eID cards. Belgium and Finland were the first countries to introduce them in 2003, followed by Sweden (2005), the Netherlands (2006) and Spain (2006). In 2007, Estonia became the first country to allow electronic voting for parliamentary elections. Nowadays...
  20. Anfänger

    Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers

    Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers Abstract Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor...
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