Living and Working in the EU e-survey

The Living and Working in the EU e-survey aims to capture the ever-changing situation around people’s living and working conditions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The survey has evolved to monitor not only the far-reaching implications of the pandemic for the way people live and work, but also the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine including a mass migration across Europe, as well as rising energy and living costs.

By continuing the e-survey, Eurofound aims to help policymakers respond to the challenges and create opportunities for change in order to bring about an equal recovery from these crises.

The e-survey data are collected via non-probability sampling methods, where respondents are invited to complete the e-survey through a series of advertisements on social media platforms. While this allows the survey to frequently collect data, it is distinct from other Eurofound surveys, as this method produces a non-representative sample. However, the composition of the sample was adjusted to be representative of the demographic profile of the EU27 as a whole and of each individual Member State, by applying weighting on the basis of gender, age, education and employment status. In addition, previous respondents who agreed to participate in further rounds and shared their email address for this purpose are invited to participate in subsequent rounds as part of a panel.

Eurofound’s e-survey documents developments in living and working during a time of rapid change. It is the continuation of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey that Eurofound began fielding at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.

The survey examines changes in quality of life and quality of society since 2020, both during the pandemic and in a post-pandemic world, covering the uncertain reality caused by the war in Ukraine, record-high inflation and sharp rises in the cost of living.

The e-survey looks at life satisfaction, happiness and optimism, health and levels of trust in institutions. It covers people’s work situation, their work–life balance, the division of labour at home, and use of teleworking. It also focuses on job quality, health and safety at work, schooling, housing and use of online services. In addition, it examines the life of young people in terms of traineeships and apprenticeships, skills and access to training, and their hopes and plans for the future. The latest round also covers the impact of climate change and environmental issues on people's lives.

Eurofound has carried out the e-survey 8 times since 2020 and gathered over 250,000 responses across all rounds. Individual rounds have achieved samples ranging from 20,000 respondents (in the panel-only Round 4) to 67,000 respondents (in Round 1), with other e-survey rounds achieving samples in between these two figures. More than 60,000 people have agreed to join the panel at some point, with around 36,000 respondents participating in at least two different rounds.

Due to the nature of data collection, the e-survey is not representative of the entire population. People who do not use the internet, do not use social media or were not invited by another participant cannot be reached by the e-survey. As respondents self-select by clicking on advertisements, the sample is biased. Known biases, such as the overrepresentation of workers, people with higher education, people aged 50–64, and, to a smaller extent, women, are identified and corrected using weighting. However, other biases – such as no access to social media or disinterest in e-survey participation – are unknown and remain uncorrected.