1. Measuring Quality of
life for policy making
in the European
Union
11th National Statistics Conference – Istat
"Conoscere il presente, progettare il futuro"
Agnès HUBERT Adviser
BEPA, European Commission

2. BEPA: The Bureau of
European Policy Advisers
BEPA provides the President of the
European Commission, the College of
Commissioners and the Commission
services with strategic thinking and
policy advice, helping to shape policy
options in the medium and long term.
We operate directly under the
President’s authority.
http://ec.europa.eu/bepa/index_en.htm

3. OUTLINE
• Statistics and Quality of life in the current
EU agenda
• The Changing welfare agenda
• Empowering people, driving change
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4. Current EU agenda: Europe 2020 and
the stability and growth pact
Long term sustainability: The Europe 2020 strategy
for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
Macroeconomic imbalances: The new "Euro Plus
Pact”, a more stringent successor to the Stability and
Growth Pact. Focus on budgets
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5. Crisis management
•Cost containment imperative
•Investment in sustainability (fixed assets
and/or investments in people)
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6. The new welfare agenda
 Objective: The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its
values and the well being of its people (art 3TEU)
 Changing focus: From compensating to
capacitating (Rawls to Sen)
 Financial constraint: efficiency gains in the
production and the delivery of well being
 Issues: employment, ageing, inequalities, gender
equality, changing family structures, migration
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7. Key features
 Focus on the distributional and design
aspects of welfare systems
 From access to self-determination
(competence, autonomy and relatedness)
and co-production (social innovation)
measured in perceptions of well being
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8. Policy response: social
investment
• Investing in children: breaking the cycle of
disadvantage
• Active inclusion of people excluded from the
labour market
• Social services of general interest
• Long term care in ageing societies
• Confronting Homelessness
• Investing in Health
• The social economy, social enterprises, social
innovation
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9. Foresight: Europe in 2030
(ESPAS)
• 3 major Trends will shape the world in 2030:
Empowerment of individuals
Greater stress on sustainable development
(resource scarcity, persistent poverty, climate
change)
Emergence of a more polycentric world
(power away from the states, growing
governance gaps)
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10. Monitoring quality of life (Well being)
•Why? - value EU Human capital
- Efficiency of welfare systems
•What to measure?
-Preference satisfaction: income (material living conditions)
-Objective lists: basic material needs+ (Health, education, economic and
physical safety)
-Eudemonic approach(living well): experience meaning, engagement and
strong social relationships (productive and valued activities, governance and
basic rights, leisure and social interaction)
-Hedonic approach: balance of positive and negative feelings (emotions)
-Evaluative approach: satisfaction with life overall (overall experience of life)
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11. Empowering people, driving
change
•Need for timely specific information for
policy makers
•Composite indicators to engage political
debate and promote participation
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