European Quality of Life Surveys (EQLS)
Eurofound’s European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) documents living conditions and people’s social situation, and explores issues pertinent to the lives of European citizens.
Fieldwork for the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) took place from the end of September 2011 to early February 2012 in the 27 European Union Member States. The overview report was published and launched in November 2012.
The data explorer below contains data from Round 4 of the EQLS done in 2016. To display this data, use the filters below to select a question.
Refine the results by selecting a country (or group of countries), apply additional filters (which vary throughout the surveys) or change the visualisation by selecting a preferred chart type.
From September 2016 to March 2017, Eurofound carried out its fourth survey in the series (in operation since 2003). The EQLS 2016 interviewed nearly 37,000 people in 33 countries – the 28 EU Member States and 5 candidate countries (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey). Its 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.
Carried out every four to five years, this unique, pan-European survey examines both the objective circumstances of citizens' lives as well as how they feel about those circumstances and their lives in general, with an aim to create a rich data source on the quality of life of the people in Europe. The survey presents data on issues that general statistics do not cover, such as the perceived quality of society, trust in institutions and social tensions. It looks at a range of issues, such as housing, deprivation, family, health and well-being. It also looks at subjective topics, such as people’s levels of happiness, how satisfied they are with their lives and their participation in society.
EQLS 2003: Covered 28 countries, EU25 and 3 candidate countries of Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey
EQLS 2007: Covered 31 countries, EU27, Norway and the candidate countries of Croatia, North Macedonia (formerly FYROM) and Turkey
EQLS 2011: Covered 34 countries, EU27 and 7 candidate or pre-accession countries: Croatia, North Macedonia (formerly FYROM), Iceland, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
EQLS 2016: Covered 33 countries, EU28 and 5 candidate countries of Albania, North Macedonia (formerly FYROM), Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.
This section provides further information targeted in particular at researchers.
In an effort to provide comparable and reliable data on quality of life across Europe, Eurofound has developed a unified methodological approach and quality assurance system. Over the years, the methodology has been improved, new concerns have been integrated and the geographical scope has expanded with the enlargements of the European Union.
Fieldwork period
September 2011-February 2012 (EU Member States); May-August 2012 (non-EU countries).
Coverage
28 EU Member States and Albania, North Macedonia (formerly FYROM), Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
Fieldwork Period
September 2016 to February 2017 in the EU28; November 2016 to March 2017 in the candidate countries
Target Population
Residents of the countries mentioned above aged 18 or older
Sample
Multi-stage, stratified, random sample in each country. Depending on the availability of high-quality registers, sampling was carried out using individual-level, household-level and address-level registers or through enumeration using a random-walk approach. Country-level samples were stratified by region and degree of urbanisation. In each stratum, primary sampling units (PSUs) were randomly selected proportional to population size. Subsequently, a random sample of individuals or households was drawn in each PSU. Finally, unless individual-level registers were used, in each household the respondent was randomly selected.
Sample Size
In most countries, the target sample size was 1,000. To reflect the larger populations in certain countries, the target was increased to 1,300 in the UK, 1,600 in Germany and 2,000 in Turkey. Eurofound also offered countries the opportunity to top up their sample. This offer was taken up by Italy, which led to a target sample size of 2,000 in that country. The total sample size for the EQLS 2016 in all 33 countries was 36,908 interviews.
Type
Questionnaire-based with interviews conducted face to face, at the respondent’s home in the national language(s) of the country; average duration of the interview was 40 minutes in the EU28 and 35 minutes in the candidate countries.
Quality Assurance
Eurofound surveys subscribe to the quality criteria of the European Statistical System as developed by Eurostat. A large number of quality checks were applied by Eurofound and its contractor during preparation and implementation of the survey to ensure a high-quality outcome. See the Quality assurance report.
For more information, see the Technical report and the Quality assessment report.
The sample of the EQLS is representative of the adult population living in private households during the fieldwork period in each of the countries covered. In most countries, multi-stage stratified and clustered sampling design was applied.
The main sampling stages are as follows: Selection of primary sampling units (PSUs), stratified according to geographic regions (at NUTS2 level or equivalent) and degree of urbanisation. Addresses were clustered in a defined number of PSUs except in the Netherlands, Malta, and Sweden where samples were drawn directly from the registries without clustering.
Subsequently, individuals or addresses were randomly selected in each PSU. In 15 countries, up-to-date, high quality address or population registers covering at least 95% of persons or households were available and these were used as a sampling frame. Random route sampling was used in 12 countries where access to register information of sufficient quality was not available., In those countries where the random route method was applied, enumeration of addresses was carried out and validated separately in advance of fieldwork to improve the survey quality.
Selection of an interviewee within a household: Once a contact with a household was established, the interviewer followed a defined and documented procedure of respondent selection by firstly registering all adults in the household, and then applying the ‘next birthday rule’ for selecting a person to be interviewed. Only the selected person could be interviewed and only one person per household. The next birthday rule was not necessary in Hungary, Malta, Slovenia and Sweden, where individual respondents were preselected from the name-based registries.
|
EU Member States |
Completed interviews |
EU Member States |
Completed interviews |
|
Austria |
1032 |
Ireland |
1051 |
|
Belgium |
1013 |
Italy |
2250 |
|
Bulgaria |
1000 |
Latvia |
1009 |
|
Cyprus |
1006 |
Lithuania |
1134 |
|
Czech Republic |
1012 |
Luxembourg |
1005 |
|
Germany |
3055 |
Malta |
1001 |
|
Denmark |
1024 |
Netherlands |
1008 |
|
Estonia |
1002 |
Poland |
2262 |
|
Greece |
1004 |
Portugal |
1013 |
|
Spain |
1512 |
Romania |
1542 |
|
Finland |
1020 |
Slovakia |
1000 |
|
France |
2270 |
Slovenia |
1008 |
|
Hungary |
1024 |
Sweden |
1007 |
|
|
|
United Kingdom |
2252 |
|
Total EU |
35516 |
|
|
| Non-EU Member States | Completed interviews |
| Croatia | 1001 |
| Iceland | 1000 |
| Kosovo | 1076 |
| Macedonia | 1006 |
| Montenegro | 1000 |
| Serbia | 1002 |
| Turkey | 2035 |
| Total non-EU | 8120 |
For further information please see the Sampling report.
EQLS 2012 - Sampling report
A high-quality questionnaire is a key element of a successful survey. Therefore, Eurofound invests heavily in the development and translation of its questionnaires.
A total of 104 questions and 262 items are available in the EQLS 2016. The questionnaire from the previous survey was reviewed in consultation with both policy stakeholders and experts in survey research. Some 66% of the EQLS 2011 questionnaire was kept as trend questions, while 51% of the EQLS 2016 questionnaire is comparable with earlier rounds.
The questionnaire for the EQLS 2016 has 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 questionnaire was also revised to improve the placement of subjective well-being items so that they were asked at the beginning of the interview before reflections on other topics could potentially affect responses.
EQLS 2016 English questionnaire
Unique questionnaire items were reviewed and evaluated for their content validity, face validity, reliability, clarity and ease of use, risk of generating biased results, and overall relevance for quality of life research. As a result of the review, each item received a recommendation. They were recommended to be kept in their present form, to be modified or to be dropped. Several new items were also added to the questionnaire. The quality assessment of questions and subsequent recommendations can be found in the Quality analysis of the EQLS 2016 questionnaire.
The source questionnaire of the fourth European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS 2016) was translated or adapted into 37 language versions across the 28 EU countries, and eight language versions in five non-EU countries.
EQLS 2012
You can contact the following expert for questions on the survey.
Sara Riso
Research managerSara Riso is a research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She is involved in research projects in the areas of employment change and restructuring.
