Anderson, Robert

This policy brief highlights findings on a specific topic from Eurofound’s European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) that is of particular interest from a policy perspective. It brings results of the analysis of these data together with evid...

This report is the first output of Eurofound’s research project on the impacts of the recent financial and economic crisis on access to publicly financed healthcare services in the EU. It aims to provide an overview of context and developments, setting the scene for the ongoing research project. Following a description of the policy context, this report goes on to explore how the crisis has impacted demand for and supply of healthcare services. It characterises different dimensions of access and discusses how the crisis may have impacted on barriers to access. It highlights groups that have traditionally been in vulnerable situations with regard to access, as well as those that may have been particularly affected by the crisis.

This background paper aims to give an overview of the effects that the lack of childcare and care facilities for other dependants has on the career choices and situation of young men and women in the labour market, with a particular focus on the effects of the crisis on the accessibility of those services. The paper was prepared on request from the European Parliament for expert input on the effects of caring for children and other dependants on the employability of young men and women. It includes an analysis of the data from Eurofound’s third European Quality of Life Survey of 2011 (EQLS), the 2013 European Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the 2011 Eurobarometer survey.

What determines life satisfaction and happiness? How do we value our social situation and immediate surroundings? How has this changed with the economic crisis? For the third wave of the European Quality of Life survey, 35,500 Europeans in ...

It is increasingly common for workers in the EU to take up paid work after retirement. This trend adds an important dimension to the current discourse on extending working lives. Facilitating work after retirement for those who want to work can contribute to sustainable pension systems. This study investigates retirees’ motivations for seeking paid work and their opportunities for gaining employment. It examines the extent to which work after retirement is related to income adequacy among the retired population. It also explores the types of paid employment that retirees take up and identifies ways in which companies seek to recruit and retain retirees. The report concludes with recommendations for governments, employers and retirees.

A paper presented at the Workshop on Innovations in Urban Governance held in Oslo, Norway, 22/23 April 1999.

Household over-indebtedness is among the causes of the current financial crisis. In turn, the crisis exacerbated both public and private debt problems. In this paper, household over-indebtedness is broadly defined as the situation where a household cannot comply with payment requirements – whether it be mortgage, utility or consumer credit payments – on a structural basis. Different types of over-indebtedness are interrelated in complex causal networks with a broad spectrum of social and health issues such as poverty, social exclusion, unemployment and labour productivity. Appropriate service provision can alleviate the problem once it has occurred, or can prevent debts from becoming problematic in the first place. This paper discusses the need for policymakers and society at large to scale up the quality of these social services. A workshop report is available.

This report is based on the second EQLS carried out in 2007-8 and offers a wideranging view of the diverse social realities in the 27 Member States, as well as covering Norway and the candidate countries of Turkey, Macedonia and Croatia. Th...

The Foundation launched its European Quality of Life Survey in 2003. The first results of this ambitious attempt to explore quality of life issues in 28 countries – the EU25 and three candidate countries, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey – ...