The Well-Being-Related Living Conditions of Elderly People in the European Union—Selected Aspects

Abstract

One of the main demographic problems is the ageing of populations, especially in European countries. However, this process is not taking place equally in all countries and has a different impact on their socio-economic development. The aim of this research is to assess and compare the well-being-related living conditions of elderly people in European Union countries. We carried out the analysis for the years 2015 and 2020 on the basis of Eurostat data. We assessed the well-being-related living conditions of older people by applying the multidimensional scaling technique. On its basis, we constructed rankings of the EU countries in the two analysed years. In addition, by using the k-means method, we clustered the countries. The disparity between the well-being-related living conditions of elderly people in Western European countries and the post-communist ones has not declined. Six of the nine analysed indicators improved over the five years between 2015 and 2020, while three (the proportion of elderly people at risk of poverty, the disparity between the incomes of the richest and poorest groups of elderly people, and the proportion of elderly people in the total population) worsened. Socio-economic policies should therefore address these indicators to the greatest extent possible.