European Quality of Life Survey 2016

Eurofound’s fourth European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), launched in 2016, documents living conditions and people’s social situation, and explores issues pertinent to the lives of European citizens. The EQLS 2016 placed a considerable focus on public services: healthcare, long-term care, childcare and schools, and measuring different aspects of quality such as fair access, facilities, staff and information available to citizens. The findings provide detailed information on a broad range of issues in three main areas:

• Quality of life: subjective well-being, optimism, health, standard of living and aspects of deprivation, work–life balance

• Quality of society: social insecurity, perception of social exclusion and societal tensions, trust in people and institutions, participation and community engagement, and involvement in training/life-long learning

• Quality of public services: health-care, long-term care, childcare and other public services.

Overall, the EQLS 2016 results show general progress in the three key areas of review: quality of life, quality of society and quality of public services – though not in all countries and not for all social groups.

There has been general progress in quality of life with some dimensions back to pre-crisis levels. For example, levels of optimism are up since the previous survey, satisfaction with living standards has increased, and life satisfaction and happiness levels remain stable. Satisfaction with standard of living has converged across Member States, self-reported quality of health has improved overall, and material hardship has declined (more people can make ends meet). But work-life balance has deteriorated and there are serious concerns about insufficient income in old age in two-thirds of countries.

The findings reveal a general improvement in quality of society indicators since 2011. Trust in national institutions has increased, engagement and participation in social organisations are on the rise, trust in people among those aged 18–24 has increased, feelings of social exclusion have declined, and perceived tensions between poor/rich, management/workers, old/young, men/women have decreased. Yet, perception of tensions between religious and ethnic groups has risen slightly and, to a lesser extent, on the basis of sexual orientation.

The data also show an overall improvement in ratings of quality of public services since the last survey round. Levels of satisfaction with several key public services, such as healthcare and public transport, have increased. Childcare has improved in several countries where ratings were previously low. Access to recycling facilities is a new issue in a number of countries, while access to banking in rural areas is a problem in some countries. However, quality of public services still varies greatly across Member States.