Eurofound surveys are regular pan-European studies that gather comparative data on living and working conditions across the European Union.
Living and Working in the EU e-survey
To continue monitoring the ever-changing situation around the long-term impacts of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and rising living costs, Eurofound adjusted its data collection to monitor the impact of these events on the lives of people in the EU and policy responses to mitigate the effects. As part of this effort, Eurofound launched the large-scale, EU-wide Living and Working in the EU e-survey.
Originally launched during COVID-19 to monitor the impacts of the pandemic on people’s life and work and policy responses, the e-survey has since expanded to document developments in living and working during a time of rapid change.
Survey objectives
The Living and Working in the EU e-survey aims to capture the ever-changing situation around people’s living and working conditions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The survey has evolved to monitor not only the far-reaching implications of the pandemic for the way people live and work, but also the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine including a mass migration across Europe, as well as rising energy and living costs.
By continuing the e-survey, Eurofound aims to help policymakers respond to the challenges and create opportunities for change in order to bring about an equal recovery from these crises.
The e-survey data are collected via non-probability sampling methods, where respondents are invited to complete the e-survey through a series of advertisements on social media platforms. While this allows the survey to frequently collect data, it is distinct from other Eurofound surveys, as this method produces a non-representative sample. However, the composition of the sample was adjusted to be representative of the demographic profile of the EU27 as a whole and of each individual Member State, by applying weighting on the basis of gender, age, education and employment status. In addition, previous respondents who agreed to participate in further rounds and shared their email address for this purpose are invited to participate in subsequent rounds as part of a panel.
Eurofound’s e-survey documents developments in living and working during a time of rapid change. It is the continuation of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey that Eurofound began fielding at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.
The survey examines changes in quality of life and quality of society since 2020, looking at life satisfaction, happiness and optimism, health and levels of trust in institutions. It covers people’s work situation, their work–life balance, the division of labour at home, and use of teleworking. It also focuses on job quality, health and safety at work, schooling, housing and use of online services.
The e-survey has been conducted 7 times since 2020 and gathered over 250,000 responses across all rounds. Individual rounds have achieved samples ranging from 20,000 respondents (in the panel-only Round 4) to 67,000 respondents (in Round 1), with other e-survey rounds achieving samples in between these two figures. More than 60,000 people have agreed to join the panel at some point, with around 36,000 respondents participating in at least two different rounds.
Due to the nature of data collection, the e-survey is not representative of the entire population. People who do not use the internet, do not use social media or were not invited by another participant cannot be reached by the e-survey. As respondents self-select by clicking on advertisements, the sample is biased. Known biases, such as the overrepresentation of workers, people with higher education, people aged 50–64, and, to a smaller extent, women, are identified and corrected using weighting. However, other biases – such as no access to social media or disinterest in e-survey participation – are unknown and remain uncorrected.
E-survey 2024
E-survey 2023
E-survey 2022
E-survey autumn 2021
E-survey spring 2021
E-survey summer 2020
E-survey spring 2020
Eurofound experts
You can contact the following experts for questions on the survey.
Eszter Sándor
Senior research managerEszter Sandor is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. She has extensive experience in survey management, including questionnaire design and scripting, data preparation (processing, cleaning, weighting), and statistical analysis using R. She manages Eurofound’s e-survey (Living and working in the EU) and contributes to the preparation and management of the European Quality of Life Survey. Her research focuses on the quality of life of young people and families, including subjective well-being, mental well-being and living conditions.
Before joining Eurofound, she worked as an economic consultant in Scotland, specialising in economic impact assessments, evaluations, and input-output analysis. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Budapest University of Economics and Business and a Master’s degree in Economics and International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest.
Daphne Ahrendt
Senior research managerDaphne Ahrendt is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. She is the coordinator of the survey management and development activity. In 2020, she initiated Eurofound’s Living and Working in the EU e-survey and now leads the 2026 European Quality of Life Survey, which she has worked on since the survey started in 2003. With over 30 years of experience in international survey research, she is also a member of the GESIS Scientific Advisory Board. Beyond surveys, her substantive research focuses on social cohesion, trust and the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Daphne started her career at the National Centre for Social Research in London where she worked on the International Social Survey Programme before moving to the Eurobarometer Unit at the European Commission. She holds a Master's degree in Criminal Justice Policies from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from San Francisco State University.
