Quantitative analysis of secondary data:
QOL and wellbeing
• A theoretical model that included 4 dimensions of quality of life (personal life, quality of society, relationship to the society and life satisfaction) was employed for Romania (using the European Quality of Life Survey 2011). The analysis showed that individuals in households living in precarious prosperity have a similarly poor quality of life to those in poverty in what regards important spheres of personal life, like education, job, health, standard of living, family and social life. However, multivariate analysis demonstrates that the poor population and the population in precarious prosperity have a significant variation in life satisfaction when taking the category "living in secure prosperity" as a reference.
• The comparative quantitative analysis of subjective well-being in Romania (European Quality of Life Survey) and Switzerland (SILC) aimed at documenting how similar structural groups (the poor and the precarious prosperous) living in markedly different structural contexts (Romania and Switzerland) evaluate their subjective well-being. In Romania, the similar low level of subjective well-being of both groups reflected the objective circumstances characterized by low levels of income coupled with high material deprivation. The analysis also highlighted possible adaptation and social comparison mechanims. In Switzerland, a high level of subjective well being of the groups and higher homogeneity across the groups were underscored in analysis, reflecting rich structural circumstances. However, there is also evidence of relative deprivation in subjective well-being of the poor in their society.
Employment
• The analysis of the relationship between employment and precarious prosperity (multinomial logistic regression based on EUSILC 2011 for Romania) demonstrates a strong relation between employment status, the number of working hours and both poverty and precarious prosperity. Furthermore, an analysis taking into account the main predictors of atypical employment with a focus on demographic and household characteristics shows that the majority of people with non-standard jobs belong to households living in poverty or precarious prosperity.
Health
• The analysis of inequalities in health in Romania (using EQLS 2011) investigated systematic differences in health by the three groups under scrutiny. Inequalities are found in self-rated health, satisfaction with health and mental health. A clear pattern emerged from the data: people in poverty and those in the vicinity of the poverty threshold systematically experience negative aspects of health in comparison to those in secure prosperity. Moreover, some dimensions of access to health services seem more problematic for the first two groups in comparison to the last one.
• A second analysis of health inequalities investigated the contribution of socioeconomic status and of access to health care to subjective health in Romania in comparison to two groups of countries: Central and Eastern European and Nordic and Western countries. Results show, in line with previous research, that the socio-economic status has a significant contribution to health status in Romania as well as the two country groups, although there is evidence of more social and economic inequalities in Romania. Similarly, access to health care proved to be a key and universal factor influencing self-rated health, while in Romania determining to a higher extent variation in self perceived general health.
Longitudinal qualitative survey and analysis:
Household strategies
• A first analysis addresses the main pathways through which households avoid slipping into poverty in Romania by employing a life course approach. Using data from the urban community, evidence was found, that opportunities for agency in order to overcome precariousness are contingent on the household’s type, its gender composition and the members’ interlocking life trajectories. At the same time, the individuals’ life courses are increasingly de-standardized within the current post-communist context. The transition from a state planned to a market economy, coupled with the minimalistic welfare state and with the low social and institutional trust altering the solidarity of communities, are factors leading to declining opportunities to rely on other resources than those provided by household members.
• Another Romanian analysis seeks to document the gendered aspects of changes in the life course in post-socialist Romanian families living in precarious prosperity, and the meanings men and women of these families, employ to make sense of their experiences. The findings show that major shifts occurred in the timing of life events. The transitions between different life stages become more unpredictable and less institutionalized across the life span, accounting for conflicting status in taking up the social roles associated with them.
• In the comparative analysis of the strategies to improve the quality of life of households in precarious prosperity in urban contexts of Romania and Switzerland the empirical analysis is based on the concept of social bonds of Paugam. The longitudinal analysis is based on several interview waves in order to shed light on the role of the welfare state, the labour market, the family and the community for the households’ quality of life. The Swiss households perceive a greater scope of agency than the Romanian households, which depend mainly on the labour market and their family.
QOL/well-being and adaptation
• A case analysis in Switzerland explored the accounts of wellbeing described by a woman living in precarious prosperity. It examined in particular the surprisingly large gap between (precarious) objective living conditions and (high) subjective wellbeing and explained it by contextual factors of the interviewing situation. It sheds light on the inner conflict experienced by a Swiss woman in precarious prosperity through addressing countervailing forces at the societal level (i.e. the growing precariousness due to the spread of feminized flexible employment, and the prevailing metanarratives of culturally embedded happiness and gender beliefs in the West).
• Including households in Pamplona (Spain) and Lausanne (Switzerland), a comparative analysis identifies patterns of household situations and strategies. Results show, that the households experience quality of life differently according to the opportunity structures. They actively contribute to shaping their life, having both their household situation and the opportunity structures in mind.
• Adaptation comes to the fore in the analysis of Romanian, Spanish and especially Swiss households. A longitudinal analysis of the three waves of interviews in Switzerland shows, what is happening in adaptation and which social experiences are linked to the processes to adaptation.
Employment
• The specific analysis on employment and work was based on data from the rural community in Romania and advanced a pattern of atypical work, considering the structural factors determining the career path. The results show that in the rural area the main strategies of dealing with the threat of slipping into poverty are early retirement, migration and subsistence agriculture, all these being shaped by the particular rural social context. The atypical work adds to this as a particular strategy that is characterized by a very high vulnerability (no working contracts, no health or social insurance).
• A comparative research was then carried out on the meaning of “precarious work” in households situated in the welfare position precarious prosperity in Switzerland and Romania in 2013. The main aim was to explore the experiences of individuals with precarious work and to embed them into their household and national structural contexts. Precarious employment patterns are similar in terms of social and economic uncertainty and instability, yet vary in many other aspects between the two countries. While in the Romanian cases insecurity is due mainly to precarious work that is related to the very low incomes, in Switzerland it stems from non-standard contracts. The research shows that precarious work is for these households both a strategy to cope with uncertainty and instability and a circumstance leading to precariousness.
Health
• A Romanian analysis looked at spill-over effects of health status in quality of life domains and at health selection, by disentangling mechanisms through which poor health status can influence downward mobility of people living in precarious prosperity. Results show that health has negative spill-over effects on standard of living, employment, education, housing, family life, and leisure and both positive and negative effects on social relations. The analysis revealed country specific mechanisms through which poor health status can influence the socio-economic status and showed how during adult life span, health problems contribute to the accumulation of multiple disadvantages within the household.
• Another Romanian analysis aimed to explore how constraints stemming from different structural contexts and social position can determine health choices and health status of people in precarious prosperity. The study revealed the constraints according to theory at various levels: health and social policy, community (urban/rural residence), work and family and social position. Corruption in the medical system stood out as a country specific factor. The most important constraints in health choices came from the economic situation of the households as costs associated with medical treatment, consultations, nutritive regime, medical devices, operations, therapy, also for informal pays or corruption, pose serious constraints for this social category.
• As households with health problems seem to have the lowest quality of life in the Swiss sample, a mixed method analysis focuses on them. In a first step, the households with health problems in Switzerland were identified, their situation and strategies analyzed. In a second step, the quantitative analysis (SILC-Data) determined factors of quality of life of households in precarious prosperity with health problems.
Intergenerational support
• A longitudinal analysis addresses the tensions in situations in which intergenerational support is the main household strategy for coping with precariousness in Romania. The population displays high public acceptance of intergenerational support, while the country’s deficient social welfare system prompts families to intensify their help exchanges. Although these usually foster solidarity, the results provide compelling evidence of detrimental effects of intensified help exchanges on intergenerational solidarity in the context of precarious prosperity in Romania. Families’ private arrangements, inadequately supported by the community and the state, and compounded by unbalanced help exchanges among generations in a normative context of equally high expectations of help provided by generations lead to tensions and alter family relationships.
Housing
• The analysis of housing strategies in Romania employed a theoretical framework of housing pathways, a perspective that allowed to understand housing patterns in time and space by looking at individual, familial and historical changes of the households. Results show how housing difficulties and postponed improvements are connected to the wider structural context given by the rural setting and the housing policy in Romania. Findings also underscore how households under scrutiny deal with housing issues by prioritizing their everyday needs, this particular strategy revealing the precariousness of their living conditions. The paper situates housing strategies within the larger discussion of the ambivalent role of house ownership in the life of the precarious prosperity stratum in Romania: a certain security and protection on the one hand, coupled with the burden of maintenance and upgrading to modern standards on the other hand.
Policy implications of precarious prosperity
The policy implications were explored within the thematic analyses described above. They revealed that the precarious prosperity stratum can be targeted in Romania generally, through public policy in the fields of employment, education, health, and through social policy. Since the most problematic areas of life for people living in precarious prosperity are the standard of living, health and social life, policy should better target this population through redistribution mechanisms, improved access to health care and better and subsidized facilities for free time.
In Switzerland, needs for social policy have been found in the domains of health and family/care. People with health problems have the lowest quality of life among the households in precarious prosperity due to spill over of health problems to almost all other life domains. Families with dependent children face special challenges and feel not supported by the welfare state.
Strategies of adaptation come to the fore in both countries, when an active modification of the living conditions is not perceived as possible. This element in the analysis of precarious prosperity allows for understanding where new social policy is needed: In the adapted cases, the welfare state and communities could actually play an active role to improve the households’ quality of life.
