Database on European System of Social Indicators, 1950-2013

The European System of Social Indicators provides a systematically selected collection of time-series data to measure and monitor individual and societal well-being and selected dimensions of general social change across European societies. Beyond the member states of the European Union, the indicator system also covers two additional European nations and – depending on data availability – the United States and Japan as two important non-European reference societies. Guided by a conceptual framework, the European System of Social Indicators has been developed around three basic concepts – quality of life, social cohesion, and sustainability. While the concept of quality of life is supposed to cover dimensions of individual well-being, the notions of social cohesion as well as sustainability are used to conceptualize major characteristics and dimensions of societal or collective well-being. The indicator system is structured into 13 life domains altogether. Time-series data are available for nine life domains, which have been fully implemented.

Time series start at the beginning of the 1980s at the earliest and mostly end by 2013. As far as data availability allows, empirical observations are presented yearly. Most of the indicator time-series are broken down by selected sociodemographic variables, such as gender, age groups, employment status, or territorial characteristics. Regional disaggregations are being provided at the NUTS-1 or similar levels as far as meaningful and data availability allows. The European System of Social Indicators is preferably based on harmonized data sources, ensuring the best possible level of comparability across countries and time. The data sources used include international aggregate official statistics, for example, provided by EUROSTAT and the OECD, as well as microdata from various official as well as science-based cross-national surveys, such as the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), Eurobarometer Surveys, the World Value Surveys, or the European Social Survey.

The European System of Social Indicators results from research activities within the former Social Indicators Research Centre at GESIS. In its initial stage, this research was part of the EuReporting-Project (Towards a European System of Social Reporting and Welfare Measurement), funded by the European Commission within its 4th European Research Framework Programme from 1998 to 2001. For more detailed information on the European System of Social Indicators, see the methodological report under „other documents“.<br>The Data of SIMon (German System of Social Indicators (DISI) and European System of Social Indicators (EUSI))
are available
via the histat online database (https://histat.gesis.org/histat/)
under the topic ´SIMon: Social Indicators Monitor´(https://histat.gesis.org/histat/de/data/themes/36)
for the free download.

A) Conceptual framework

The development of the conceptual framework for the European System of Social Indicators builds on the theoretical discussion of welfare and quality of life as well as the goals of social development oriented towards them. Additionally, the tasks and fundamental objectives of European Union policy have been statistically measured and reported. Based on these two areas (theoretical debate on welfare on the one hand and EU policy objectives on the other), six perspectives and dimensions of social development in Europe were identified which form the conceptual core of the European system of social indicators and are related to the concepts of quality of life, social cohesion and sustainability.

Dimensions of quality of life:
1) The dimension of objective living conditions describes the actual living conditions of individuals (working conditions, state of health, material standard of living).
2) The dimension of subjective welfare includes perceptions, assessments, and assessments of living conditions by citizens.

Dimensions derived from the concept of social cohesion:
3) Disparities, inequalities and social exclusion relate to aspects of the distribution of wealth in society (regional disparities, equal opportunities).
4) Social relationships, bonds, and inclusion refer to the social capital of a society. The existence of informal networks, associations, and organizations as well as the functioning of social institutions are covered by the dimension of social cohesion.

Dimensions of sustainability. In this context, sustainability is primarily understood as the preservation or increase of social capital (physical capital, social capital, human capital, natural capital) for future generations.
5) Securing human capital: Measuring dimensions and indicators of this target dimension primarily concern aspects of people´s education, skills, and health.
6) Safeguarding natural capital: This dimension relates both to the current state of the environment and to processes and measures that improve or worsen the natural foundations of life.

In addition to these six target dimensions of individual quality of life and the quality of societies, the European system of social indicators also includes selected dimensions of social change:
Demographic and socio-economic structures
Values and settings
These - a total of 8 - dimensions of welfare and social change lie at right angles to the 13 areas of life taken into account:

Population
Household and Family
Living
Transport and traffic
Leisure, media, culture
Social and political participation, integration
Education, vocational training
The labour market, working conditions
Income, the standard of living, consumption
Health
Environment
Social security, welfare
Social and public security, crime
Life situation overall

(H.-H. Noll, EUSI web page)

B) Theoretical background

The Social Indicators System is the result of a discussion sparked off in the 1970s to measure a country´s prosperity development. Hans-Jürgen Krupp and Wolfgang Zapf initiated this discussion. Together they pointed out in 1972 in an expert opinion for the German Council of Economic Experts that the gross domestic product in particular and the parameters of national accounts (NA) in general are not sufficient to measure social welfare or ignore important aspects.

(see:
Krupp, H.-J. and Zapf, W. (1977), The role of alternative indicators of prosperity in assessing macroeconomic development. Council for Social and Economic Data, Working Paper No. 171, reprint of the report for the Council of Economic Experts of September 1972: 2011)

They developed a multidimensional concept of quality of life in which, in addition to national accounts, the individual development possibilities and the possibilities perceived by individuals for satisfying their needs in different areas of life are also taken into account.
The authors define the quality of life as ´the extent to which individuals perceive the satisfaction of their needs´ (1977, reprint: 2011, p. 4). Thus, the purely national economic concept of growth and prosperity is supplemented by categories of sociology and political science, in which ´quality of life is (represents) a positive objective against which efforts to measure and evaluate performance and deficits in the individual areas of life and for different social groups should be oriented.´ (Krupp/Zapf, 1977, reprint: 2011, p. 5)

In this way, the authors promote comprehensive social reporting that measures the achievement of welfare goals in society.
The authors explain the concept of social indicators as follows:

´Social indicators are statistics that differ from usual statistics in several ways.
They should measure performance, not the expenditure.
They should primarily refer to the welfare of individuals and certain social groups, not to the activities of authorities; however, a whole range of aggregate sizes cannot be dispensed with.
They should inform about change processes, i.e., be presented in the form of time series.
They should be in a theoretical context, i.e., their causal relationship to the´indicator date´ should be as clear as possible. (… )
Social indicators are statistics that often lie far outside the official survey programmes (...)´. (Krupp/ Zapf, 1977, p. 14)

The system of social indicators represents independent reporting compared to official government reporting (cf. Krupp/Zapf 1977, p. 7) and also includes survey research in addition to official data. The indicator system for Germany and subsequently for Europe was conceived under Heinz-Herbert Noll in the former GESIS-ZUMA in Mannheim as an instrument for long-term social observation.

For the compilation of the defined indicators, sources from official statistics as well as data from large survey programmes are used. The aim is to provide continuous time series.

The access of the data of the database SIMon - which includes the German and the European Social Indicators (´DISI´ and ´EUSI´), is offered via the online-database histat (https://histat.gesis.org/histat/)
under the topic ´SIMon: Social Indicators Monitor´(https://histat.gesis.org/histat/de/data/themes/36).