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Comparative Examination of Self-Perceived Health and Other Measures of the Quality of Life Across the EU-27

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Abstract

In various fields of research self-perceived health has been defined and analysed as a significant measure of the health-related quality of life, and also as a predictor of health status. This paper examines the determinants of self-perceived health in the EU-27 area in order to find whether a common set of governmental policies could improve the self-perceived health and whether this positive effect would remain positive and significant on other measures of the quality of life as well as across the quintiles of income distribution. A number of panel regression models using the first-difference GMM estimator are applied to comparatively examine self-perceived health together with other measures of health status and quality of life, based on Eurostat data from 2003 to 2012. The empirical results of the paper could provide useful insights for the European health policy and other common actions and policies in the field of the quality of life.

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Notes

  1. The Eurostat publications in the field of the quality of life are considered to be “flagship publications” since 2013.

  2. The EU-27 term refers at the EU-27 Member States of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

  3. Even though the high heterogeneity depicted within the EU-27 would suggest separately running the econometric models for the NMS and OMS groups, the dataset constraints (small sample) would weaken the GMM tests and results. In the empirical section, all models are applied only on the whole EU-27 dataset.

  4. In the literature of European integration, the process of Europeanization has been described as “a process by which domestic policy areas become increasingly subject to European policy-making” (Borzel 1999).

  5. The growth rate refers here at the proportion of individuals reporting a poor self-perceived health.

  6. A detailed presentation of the GMM estimator is provided in the Sect. 3.

  7. The analysis is conducted at the macroeconomic level, based on a number of 27 EU countries over a time span of 10 years.

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  1. Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania

    Monica Răileanu Szeles

  2. Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania

    Monica Răileanu Szeles

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Răileanu Szeles, M. Comparative Examination of Self-Perceived Health and Other Measures of the Quality of Life Across the EU-27. Soc Indic Res 137, 391–411 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1597-1

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