The survey was carried out for the first time in 2003, covering 28 countries (25 Member States and three candidate countries).
The second round of EQLS was carried out during September 2007 – February 2008 in 31 countries - the EU 27, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Norway, and Turkey. The full descriptive overview report is now available. A number of more detailed secondary analyses will follow.
In preparation for the 2nd EQLS a review of methodology used in the 2003 survey was carried out and recommendations for improvement are reflected in the second survey.
Population: more than 35,000 respondents aged 18 years or older were interviewed, mainly face-to-face. In three countries part of the interview was conducted by telephone.
Sample size: for 24 of the countries, the achieved sample size was around 1,000. For France, Italy, Poland and the UK the sample size was approximately 1,500. In Germany and Turkey it was 2,000.
Questionnaire: it was designed to fit into a 30 minute interview and covers a broad spectrum of life domains with an emphasis upon employment, housing, family, social and political participation, quality of society and subjective well-being. This provides unique information on the different dimensions of quality of life across European countries and delivers about 200 comparable indicators.
Data collection was organised by TNS-Opinion, which assigned national institutes to draw the random samples and conduct the interviews in each country.
Weighting: sample data were re-weighted by age, sex and region to conform to national population patterns.
Quality control was performed by internal and external agents. A minimum of 20% of interviews and routes were checked in each country.