European System of Social Indicators: Income, Standard of Living, and Consumption Patterns, 1980-2013

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>Structure:

I) General information on the social indicator system
Ia) Background

II) The Dimension of life: Income, Standard of Living, and Consumption Patterns

I) General information on the social indicator system

The time series of the European System of Social Indicators (EUSI) are´social indicators´ used to measure social welfare and social change. The conceptual framework builds on the theoretical discussion of welfare, quality of life and the goals of social development oriented towards them.
The basis for defining these indicators is a concept of quality of life that encompasses different areas of life in society. Each area of life can be divided into several target areas. Target dimensions have been defined for the individual target areas, for each of which a set of social indicators (= time series, statistical measures) has been defined.

The EUSI indicator time series combine objective living conditions (factual living conditions such as working conditions, income development) and subjective well-being (perceptions, assessments, evaluations) of the population.
The time series starts in 1980 and end in 2013.
They make it possible to understand social developments by reliable and, over time, comparable data between European countries.
They are an important complement to national accounts indicators.
EUSI indicators are part of an ongoing debate at European level on measuring welfare and quality of life, which has led to various initiatives by statistical offices in Europe.

Ia) Background

The social indicator 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)

Compared to official government reporting, the system of social indicators represents independent reporting (cf. Krupp/Zapf 1977, p. 7) and also includes survey research in addition to official data.

Based on the theoretical concept of quality of life, the structural parameters of the indicator system were defined. This means that the areas of life and the target and measurement dimensions belonging to them are operationalized. This initially results in a multidimensional structure with the following levels:
1) The current 10 areas of life are the highest level.
They have published in histat under the topic ´SIMon: Social Indicators Monitor 1950-2013´.
as individual studies.
2) The second level is the target areas.
Several target areas are assigned to each area of life. They appear as tables in the respective studies.
3) The third level is the target dimensions (also called measurement dimensions). This is a subarea that is meaningful for the higher-level life area and for which data is collected for the corresponding target area. For example, a table on the´objective living conditions´ is offered for the area of life´population, households and families´, which forms a study (2nd level). This table contains data on social services and support for families (level 3), which in turn are divided into different sub-dimensions: Services for childcare and care services for the elderly.
4) The fourth level is the measurable indicators of social change and welfare. An indicator of the childcare situation is the number of childcare facilities available for children under three years of age. Another indicator is the provision of nursing homes or retirement homes.

The data for the selected indicators are compiled from different sources. Sources are data from official statistics as well as data from large survey programs.

II) The Dimension of life: Income, Standard of Living, and Consumption Patterns

- Objective Living Conditions
- Subjective Well-Being
- Disparities, Inequalities, Social Exclusion
- social Relationships and Ties
- Human Capital
- Natural Capital
- Demographic and Socio-economic Structures
- Values and Attitudes

The data tables are available in HISTAT under the topic: SIMon: Social Indicators Monitor 1950-2013.