Why family data matters
Families are at the heart of care, education, and social protection systems, yet families’ challenges, experiences, and needs are not always reflected fully in EU wide comparable data. High quality, comparative data is fundamental to achieving positive outcomes for families and society for several key reasons. Data is essential across the entire policy cycle, from agenda setting and policy development, to implementation, and to monitoring and evaluation. It acts as both the foundation and feedback loop of effective evidence-based policies supporting families across Europe.
In this policy brief
This policy brief explores the role cross-country comparative data plays across Europe in achieving positive outcomes for families and society. It considers the state of play of data on family diversity and household data, care for adult family members, labour market discriminations, and family leaves as examples of where data is key yet data gaps persist and must be addressed. It identifies the implications these gaps can have for families in Europe, before putting forward potential solutions. The aim of this policy brief is to stress how crucial data is in the policy cycle, share key databases and surveys related to families and family life across the EU, and present recommendations for richer data going forward.
Key areas for improvement
This policy brief highlights several key areas where more can be done but also highlighted potential solutions that can already make a difference in moving towards a European data infrastructure that better captures families and their realities.
- In the field of family diversity and EU household data, the Families in Households Typology developed by Bártová, Thaning, Van Lancker, and Nieuwenhuis can be used to strengthen key surveys such as EU-SILC to ensure that families in all their diversity can be seen in the data.
- Concerning the need for more comparative EU data on how much care adults provide for other adult family members and the implications this has on their ability to engage in paid work, the blueprint for an EU-SILC ad-hoc module on ‘Adult Care and Work’ developed by Bártová and Van Lancker can be introduced into the rotation of ad-hoc modules.
- To strengthen data on intersectional labour market vulnerabilities, efforts can be made to strengthen variables on key groups at risk, such as on race and ethnicity, care responsibilities, gender identity and disability and push for a more intersectional approach to data collection and policy design.
- In order to ensure the implementation and impact of the EU-Work Life Balance Directive, work can be done to ensure greater consistency across datasets and surveys to give key stakeholders the base to be able to push for continuing reform and development of family leaves that respond to families’ realities going forward.
