Quality of life in Europe

1
Quality of lifein Europe

• Ireland, 29 June 2005
• European Foundation
• for the
• Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

2
The Foundations orientation to Quality of Life

• Quality of life Living Conditions
• Subjective Objective measures
• Integrated Holistic view
• Analytical Descriptive reports

3
Domains of Quality of Life

• (Core domains)
• Economic resources
• Health and health care
• Employment and working conditions
• Knowledge, education and training
• Families and households
• Community life and social participation
• Housing
• Local environment and amenities
• Transport
• Public safety and crime
• Recreation and leisure activities
• Culture and identity, political resources and
  human rights, including the European dimension

4
Core Focus

• Domains of employment, economic resources,
  family, community, health and education
• The inter-relationships between them (e.g. work
  and family, health and economic resources)
• Time use (in work, family and community
  activities) as a crucial aspect
• and Quality of social provision (e.g. health and
  social care) as key elements of quality of life

5
Ireland

• The worlds best country Economist
  Intelligence Unit
• The country with the highest overall risk of
  poverty Commission and Councils Joint Report
  on Social Inclusion
• What does the EQLS tell us about
• - Subjective well-being
• - Material well-being
• - Job security
• - Family relations
• - Gender equality
• - Community life
• - Health

6
Subjective well-being Ireland in comparison
7
Optimism about the future
8
Satisfaction with present standard of living
NS gender, age, urban/rural but lower quartile
6.1 middle 7.4 highest 8.2. Highest (8.3)
among professional/managerial self-employed.
Clearly lowest among unemployed.
9
Material conditions
10
Feeling of subjective economic strain
11
Housing Ireland in comparison
12
Problems with housing or environment Ireland in
comparison
13
Employment Ireland in comparison
14
Job satisfaction Ireland in comparison
15
Family relationsContact with parents only a few
times a year or less
16
Satisfaction with family life
17
Gender equality - Housework
18
Community life
19
Long-standing illness
20
Quality of health and social services Ireland in
comparison
21
Conclusions

• Quality of life is high on several dimensions and
  overall life satisfaction is good but not for
  everybody
• In general, living standards, material
  conditions, deprivation, health status and life
  satisfaction are clearly associated with income
• Measures of family support and quality of family
  life are reassuringly positive but gender
  differences in the distribution of household
  roles are marked. Relatively high levels of
  participation in church and community life

22
Conclusions (contd)

• Although ratings of health are relatively good,
  assessments of the quality of health services
  (and of public transport) are well below the EU
  15 average assessments of the quality of the
  education and pension systems are relatively high
• Some big differences between life in urban and
  rural areas living standards, job security,
  internet use, participation in training

23
Survey methodology

1. Representative household survey of people 18
2. Interviews in May-September 2003
3. Coverage EU countries including 10 new Member
   States 3 candidate countries (Bulgaria, Romania
   and Turkey)
4. Sample size 1000 people per country (600 in the
   5 smallest)
5. Response rate 58 - 26000 interviews (IRL33)
6. Cleaned data set available January 2004