The Quality of European Societies: A Compilation of Composite Indicators

This volume presents a compilation of composite indicators created in order to measure important aspects of the quality of European societies. It examines three main questions: do Europeans live in good societies and enjoy good lives; are European societies becoming better as time passes, or is their quality slowly deteriorating; is the quality of life of Europe's citizens improving over time or is it gradually and irrecoverably getting worse. The volume uses a precise and rigorous system of information to answer these questions and to assess the current situation and monitor the quality of European societies. It describes and discusses fourteen key domains, and per chapter, presents five rankings of EU countries based on composite indicators, which are used as one of the best instruments social science has to synthesize a large amount of information, and they are especially well suited to measure multidimensional social phenomena. The new System of Indices on the Quality of European Societies (SIQES) presented in this volume offers a very broad and rich empirical overview of more than 70 social composite indicators and their nearly 300 dimensions. One of the key findings coming out from the SIQES is that, according to the societal quality of European countries, there exist five different "Europes" inside Europe.

Eduardo Bericat is Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Seville, and Director of the research group Studies on the Quality of European Societies. His current academic interests are mainly two. On the one hand, the analysis of the social quality and quality of life of European societies through the design, compilation, analysis, and interpretation of composite indicators. On the other hand, the sociology of emotions, particularly the social stratification of emotional well-being, that is, the study of the social distribution of happiness and unhappiness. Others interests are visual sociology, social values, and culture.

María Luisa Jiménez-Rodrigo is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Seville (Spain) and member of the research group Studies on the Quality of European Societies (University of Seville). Her main lines of research include the sociology of gender and social inequalities, specifically in relation to health, education, and work; and the analysis of socio-labour and educational policies and their effects on the processes of discrimination, attention to diversity and social inclusion.