In any case, cuts in state-provided social protections should not be exaggerated, particularly in respect of the North. In fact, in EU countries social expenditure as a percentage of GDP remained broadly steady during the 1980s and 1990s, and at considerably higher levels than in the 1960s. In some respects people in the North have sometimes perceived a decline of the welfare state, when it may in fact be their expectations of still greater public provision of pensions, health care, education, housing and other social services that have been disappointed.