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Comparing housing problems across Europe

Type of case study: Research

Impact

Research ideas using the European Quality of Life Survey

Poor housing conditions are both a predictor and an outcome for a range of social and health statuses which makes their measurement important. For researchers wanting to test the association between housing and health across national boundaries, the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) offers the most comprehensive survey resource.

Key survey: European Quality of Life Survey

EQLS is one of three surveys run by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working (Eurofound) The survey has been undertaken every four years since 2003 and covers around 30 European countries. The survey examines a range of issues, such as employment, income, education, housing, family, health, work-life balance, life satisfaction and perceived quality of society.

The survey includes a key set of questions on housing conditions:

question table


These particular items have been used to create indices of deprivation (Whelan and Maître, 2005) and to demonstrate how (poor) material assets contribute to wider social and health inequalities (Domanski et al, 2006; Aldabe et al, 2010).

Other important findings from the 2007 and 2003 surveys can be found at:

EQLS mapping tool

For the 2007 EQLS, interested users can view the responses to survey questions via Eurofound’s online mapping tool, allowing them to make quick visual comparisons across countries. The tool permits the user to make further refinements, including breaking down the results by gender, age group or income group.

The set of questions on housing conditions can be viewed at Eurofound.

Eurofound screenshot


Access to the EQLS data

Registered users may access the full survey datasets in SPSS, Stata or tab-delimited format via European Quality of Life Survey list of datasets.

Where else might I find cross-national data on housing conditions?

Within our collection, the Young Lives study – covering India, Vietnam, Peru and Ethiopia – includes a large number of questions relating to material living conditions. Many European nations also conduct a house condition survey – see Housing Statistics in the European Union 2010 – and often these data can be acquired for ESDS users from the host archive.

Aggregated data on housing at country level is available from the World Bank World Development Indicators, Africa Development Indicators, OECD Social Expenditure and Eurostat New Cronos (which incorporates some of the EQLS data).