Developing a Country Typology for Analyzing Quality of Life in Europe

Abstract

[Excerpt] The expansion of the EU provides an opportunity to improve understanding of the way in which a state can influence outcomes for its citizens: increasing diversity leads to substantial variation in terms of policies and their implementation, and it brings challenges in terms of the number and complexity of such differences. One way of dealing with this is to group countries. Many different models have attempted this, both in Europe and more widely, but none specifically focuses on quality of life while including the full set of current EU Member States. The goal of this project was to develop a country typology focused on quality of life as a multidimensional concept for the 34 countries included in the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS).