Living conditions apartment in the apartment

Ongoing work

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  Quality of life in European capital cities
  

Other topics addressed will include:

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  Report to examine fairness and optimism for the future and their relationship to people’s perceptions and realities (objective indicators of social and economic situation and living standards)
  
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  Mapping developments in advisory for household debt in EU countries as well as identifying barriers to access these services to combat poverty and assessing take-up
  
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  Monitoring convergence in living conditions and providing in-depth analyses of convergence trends among European countries as well as a discussion of policy options to restore convergence among Member States
  
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  Report on regional convergence and inequalities, which investigates evolutions of social imbalances (e.g. unemployment, social exclusion, poverty) at the regional level and examines the relationship between growth, regional disparities and interpersonal inequalities 
  

Lifestyles and living conditions policy framework

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  Introduction
  
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  Family and housing transitions
  
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  Leisure time
  
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  Health and well-being
  

Introduction

Lifestyles and Living Conditions are fundamental fields to the understanding of youth specificity and culture, of their concrete social conditions of existence, and also of the close relation between their behaviours and the structure of opportunities and constraints - defined both at a national and at a European level - in which they occur. Although profoundly inter-related and of extreme importance both for the scientific and policy arenas, the analysis and application of evidence and knowledgeon these matters in the policy-making and policy-informing processes are made difficult by the very nature of these subjects themselves (see report Nico, 2009). First, because Living Conditions and Lifestyles are often measured through different indicators and very frequently also through distinct methodologies (with a stronger presence of qualitative and/or a comprehensive approach when it comes to the culture and lifestyles of young people, and a stronger presence of statistical approaches concerning the topic of living conditions), and secondly, they have also been target of different political interests, agendas and priorities. Thirdly, besides different methodology and policy applicability, these aspects are also very closely related to private spheres of life, either concerning family matters and the sociability networks and cultural practices of young people, which all together makes them less directly reachable to policy recommendation, design or assessment.

For these reasons, the present framework aims solely to provide some approaches and data on these topics, as well as to relate them to relevant European documentation on the matter. An updated version of this document (since early 2009, Nico, 2009) necessarily takes more or less explicitly into account the current Global Recession being experienced in Europe and its ramifications to youth situation, namely the "unprecedented levels of unemployment and the risk of social exclusion and poverty" (Joint Communication, 2012); production of new data and establishment of a limited set of indicators in the study of these topics; and the role of young people in the growth strategy Europe 2020. A framework on these issues has also to take into account not only these well-known current economic circumstances, but also future both short and long term consequences for young people (ILO, 2012). In this sense, Statistical Portraits and Flash-barometers on youth are absolutely welcome, but insufficient in content – by excluding qualitative and subjective information - and in analysis – by only including the current situation on youth people and thus contributing to the lack of both retrospective and prospective data and the subsequent diachronic analysis. Young people are, thus, both subjects and objects of these analyses, and therefore:

"Young people need to be fully recognised as important stakeholders in all levels of decision making processes that affect them, not just because they will have to endure the extreme economic and social consequences of climate change and the depletion of natural resources, but also because they can help find solutions to current problems by contributing a new and fresh perspective" (pp. 7). (Resolution for the United Nations Conference on sustainable development 2012, 2011)

Living conditions and Lifestyles must also be taken into account as being highly affected by other spheres of life. In the Joint Communication on the 2012 Joint Report, for instance, social inclusion is considered as a ramification of education and training and health and well-being as well as a ramification of employment and entrepreneurship. This can indeed be confirmed in the 2012 Joint Report approach on Social exclusion, which "brings about a vicious circle of unemployment or low-quality employment and poor living conditions with limited access to education and training, health care and ‘social and community networks and activities'". Not surprisingly, as a result, between 2010 and 2012, "most Member States report having a national youth strategy or a cross-sectoral plan targeting youth" and "the creation of new cross-sectorial partnerships and development of joint projects and initiatives in the youth sector should [continued to] be supported" (Joint Communication, 2012).

To sum up, although in real live and in policy-making processes these dimensions are inter-connected, the method and data behind each one are considerable different. While Living Conditions may refer to the subjective-objective concept of quality of life, wider social issues such as the social structure, social inequalities within and between the countries, and the endurable question of how, in this context, to design and apply effectively transversal European policies; Lifestyles tend to refer more to the concepts of well-being and healthy lifestyles, which on their turn involve, as will be seen later on this text, many subjective (perceptions and self-reports) and objective indicators. For this reason, it is not possible to present a background of European policies and outcomes concerning Lifestyles and Living Conditions as if they were one cohesive topic. In consequence, these dimensions are going to be presented three parts, on the following topics: Family and Housing Transitions, Leisure Time, and Health and Well-being.

Family and housing transitions

Leaving the parental home, entering a partnership, having children: these are all both important demographic events and meaningful social markers in one's life. Transition to adulthood is a "demographically dense period of multiple transitions" (Rindfuss, 1991), even when we recognize that this period has been extended in time, and that some adulthood markers are increasingly postponed or avoided by younger generations. This postponement is, more than a cultural issue, a consequence of major social changes and differences in European Societies, some of them unequivocally positive such as the extension of the educational trajectories, others clearly contributing to dynamics of social inequality such as the difficulty in entering and staying integrated in the labor market, the lack of housing availability and affordability, and the lack of family-friendly programs and incentives.

Some demographers have raised the question of the emerging "new demography" that together with the increase of life expectancy and the decrease of fertility patterns all over Europe is characterized by the postponement of leaving the parental home for the first time (Vaupel, 2000 e Kohler, 2000 quoted by Billari, 2004: 16). This happens not only as a consequence of longer educational trajectories, or of social and cultural norms from each country, but also as a side effect of a tentative prevention from poverty. As is stated in the 2012 Joint Report:¹

"The risk of becoming poor is closely linked to the timing of departure from the parental home. In fact, some studies have found that moving out of the parental household is the ‘strongest predictor behind youth poverty'."

The second demographic transition was characterized by some of these phenomena, made possible by scientific and technological change but also, maybe above all, by cultural, value and social change across Europe. The recent economic scenario may lead us to question if a third demographic transition is not at the edge of happening in Europe, one that is less value-oriented and more involuntary (because caused by the high rates in youth unemployment, specially in some countries), of high rates of mobility and migration, as well as increased decline in family formation and fertility. This is from a diachronic approach, where new policies of incentive and protection to fertility and parenthood are urgently needed, as well as programmes that facilitate, either through rent or loan incentives, the difficult access of young people and young couples to housing. This will approach the serious and worrisome demographic issues and prospections made on the 2012 Joint Report, where it is reported, among other things, that between 2000 and 2010 most of the European countries have seen their percentage of young population (15-29 years old) decrease (southern and eastern countries) or increase not more than 9% (according to Eurostat 2010 data), and the fertility rate is prospected to be below the replacement level.

From a synchronic approach, however, we find a great deal of heterogeneity between European countries concerning the living conditions standards (Eurofound, 2010) the pace, timing and occurrence of these events. The individualization of life course, and the choice of biographies produced in the process, may benefit, first, from public strategies and programmes concerning the conciliation between school, work and family and secondly, from efficient housing markets and policies. These conditions produce positive consequences throughout the life course and are usually mostly found in Scandinavian countries. Research has indeed found that in many aspects, such as leaving home for instance, country heterogeneity is far more relevant than generation heterogeneity (Nico, 2011). These are good news but also a challenge for policy-making. On the one hand, current heterogeneity between the countries can facilitate the collection and exchange of good practices instead of treating inaccessibility to family formation (namely the level of affordability of childcare services, according to Eurobarometer 355 ‘Poverty and Social Exclusion) and housing as an inevitable product of time, of social change or social norms of each country. In this sense these indicators have to be dissociated from "cultural issues", for that can become counterproductive in terms of production of policy: "The reasons why some young people stay longer with their parents in some countries than in others include several cultural factors, and are therefore useful as a contextual indicator, rather than linked to a specific policy field" (European Commission, 2011). On the other hand, it makes the establishment of a transversal and not nationally designed policy making towards family and housing more difficult.

Having said this, there are at least three areas where the development of youth policy could have very positive outcomes in young people's lives: 

1.