Living conditions apartment in the apartment

Living conditions apartment in the apartment

The focus at EU level on lifting people out of poverty has put living conditions and living standards high on the social policy agenda. Despite positive changes in the labour market in recent years, the EU is still far from achieving its Europe 2020 target of lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion by 2020. Monitoring and mapping the evolution of living conditions and quality of life in EU Member States is therefore still a priority.

The European Commission has established a set of quality of life statistics and launched the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) in 2003. EU-SILC gathers comparative data on income, poverty, social exclusion, housing conditions, labour, education and health.  

More recently, the European Pillar of Social Rights, jointly proclaimed by the EU institutions in November 2017, covers 20 principles under three core areas: equal opportunities and access to the labour market, which includes fairness related to living conditions and poverty; fair working conditions; social protection and inclusion, which includes housing and assistance for the homeless. In particular, the principles underline the role of public services in enhancing quality of life. The Pillar is accompanied by the Social Scoreboard – a list of indicators to monitor progress towards implementation of these principles in Member States.

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  European Commission: Europe 2020 strategy
  
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  European Commission: European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions - Eurostat
  
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  European Commission: The European Pillar of Social Rights in 20 principles
  
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  European Commission: Social Scoreboard