The basic aim of this paper is to assess existing welfare regimes in the countries of European Union before and after the enlargement of May 2004 (EU 15 and EU 25) building on a comprehensive approach that considers different dimensions of welfare through an extended set of variables. The paper...

After the collapse of the communist system in 1989, most Eastern European countries experienced a mortality and health crisis. However, this did not hit the traditionally most vulnerable groups - children, adolescents, women and the elderly - but male adults in the 20-59 age group. The Report...

This Report looks at the changes in risks facing the 100 million children in the 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Eight types of risk are considered in turn: poverty; war and dislocation; environmental degradation; health and health service deterioration; changes in...

This Report looks at the changes in risks facing the 100 million children in the 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Eight types of risk are considered in turn: poverty; war and dislocation; environmental degradation; health and health service deterioration; changes in...

This paper explores the role of housing in households’ increasing financial activities. First, I build on quantitative work on the growth of housing related debt across Europe carried out under WP5 by presenting data on rates of homeownership, levels and types of mortgage debt, and house...

This paper first reviews existing studies of the links between good governance and subjective well-being. It then brings together the largest available sets of national-level measures of the quality of governance to assess the extent to which they contribute to explaining the levels and changes...

In the extensive literature that has been dedicated during the past fifteen years to the comparative analysis of the welfare states, a significant number of studies have focused on the identification of the ideal regimes or types, in addition to their empirical validation. The celebrated work,...

This paper summarizes recent empirical research on the determinants of subjective well-being. Results from national and international samples suggest that measures of social capital, including especially the corollary measures of specific and general trust, have substantial effects on well-being...

In this paper we employ World Values Survey measures of life satisfaction as though they were direct measures of utility, and use them to evaluate alternative features and forms of government in large international samples. We find that life satisfaction is more closely linked to several World...

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 paved the way for changes in every aspect of life in this region. New opportunities and new risks emerged for all members of society. The main drive for change has been bold economic and political reform - the transition from planned systems to market...