Cross-national Comparison of the Quality of Life in Europe: Inventory of Surveys and Methods

The intention of this paper is to provide thescientific community with information onresearch carried out in the course of thecomparative research programme EuReporting – Towards a European System onSocial Reporting and Welfare Measurement. Thisresearch is being funded by the EuropeanCommission and is being conducted by researchteams throughout Europe. In this paper, we willreport on the findings of the research carriedout by the team in Vienna. The Vienneseresearch team is to assess the existing stockof comparative and cross-sectional surveys inthe field of social reporting and welfaremeasurement. Of concern here is not onlydocumentary work, but also the quality andcomparability of existing survey data. Thefocus of the Vienna project is upon suchcross-national and cross-sectional surveys asthe World Values Survey, the InternationalSocial Survey Programme, the Eurobarometer andthe New Democracies Barometer, as well asnational longitudinal studies.