To feel or to have. Subjective and economic indicators of the quality of life in europe (eu-28)

Abstract

This paper studies the quality of life in the EU-28 from a multidimensional perspective that reflects what they feel and what European citizens really have, using data from the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) for the year 2016. After a selection of both subjective indicators (satisfactions of a social nature) and variables of economic type, we constructed by means of a sequential application of two different grouping methods (analysis of main components and Mazziotta-Pareto indicator) composite indicators. These synthetic indicators allow to establish differences between the countries analyzing the quality of life from two different approaches (subjective and economic), resulting to be highly correlated. In addition, it is concluded that the countries of the north and of Western Europe have a higher quality of life than those of the south and east of the EU.