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F4: Quality of life

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The main purpose of the EU survey on gender-based violence (EU-GBV) is to assess the prevalence of violence in order to address the requirements of the Istanbul Convention. The survey covers psychological, physical and sexual violence by intimate partner, physical and sexual violence by non-partner, sexual harassment at work, violence experienced in childhood and stalking by any perpetrator.

The data collection for the first wave (year 2021) was conducted in voluntary bases and took place between September 2020 and March 2024 in the EU countries, based on their national timetables. Eurostat coordinated data collection in 18 Member States (BE, BG, DK, EE, EL, ES, FR, HR, LV, LT, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, SI, SK, FI). Italy shared main indicators from their national survey. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) launched a joint data collection in the eight Member States not covered by Eurostat (CZ, DE, IE, CY, LU, HU, RO, SE) following the EU-GBV manual.

The target population of the EU-GBV survey is persons aged 18-74 who live in private households, with a focus on women. However, men can be included in the target population by countries willing to do so. Out of all EU, 11 Member States (BE, EE, FR, HR, LV, LT, MT, NL, PT, SI, FI) covered in the survey men, and accordingly, data for violence experienced by total population are available for them. The disseminated indicators focus on violence by perpetrator, disaggregated by type of violence, frequency, severity, seriousness and reporting of the experienced violence and by personal characteristics of the respondent as age, level of education, activity limitation and degree of urbanisation.

It is necessary to point out that survey data might only be a close proxy to real prevalence as survey data depends on the willingness of the respondent to disclose any violence experienced. Therefore, to understand the prevalence of violence and disclosure rates by survey respondents, it is important to take into account the extent to which violence is tolerated in the wider community. For example, in cultures where people are ready to talk about their painful experiences, their answers may reflect more accurately their own experiences rather than community norms.

Based on the literature review and also results of the survey, both, women and men are experiencing violence. However, the experiences of women and men are very different considering type of perpetrator and type of violence as well as seriousness and consequences of the experienced violence. Even more, as the survey questions were focused on the victim’s experience of certain violent acts, both women and men could experience such violence due to victimising or putting up a defence against the perpetrator. Therefore, it is important to consider the seriousness of the violence experienced to better understand the victimisation.

The country codes conform to the ISO 3166 (International Organisation of Standardisation), and regional codes to the NUTS 2 classification. Educational level of respondent and her partner are based on ISCED 2011. Variables on respondent occupation and economic activity are optional, however, if collected, the classification of occupation uses ISCO-08 (two-digit) and the classification of economic activity uses NACE Rev. 2 (two-digit).

Statistical concepts and definitions are specified in the ‘Methodological manual for the EU survey on gender-based violence against women and other forms of inter-personal violence (EU-GBV)’.

Violence by type of perpetrator

Type of perpetrator of violence are defined according to relationship.

Violence by intimate partner covers psychological, threats, physical and sexual violence. Intimate partners are persons with whom a respondent has or had an intimate relationship. Regarding the disseminated indicators by type of perpetrator, the prevalence of intimate partner violence is calculated out of persons who have ever been in intimate partnership.

Violence by non-partner, covers threats, physical and sexual violence. Non-partners are all perpetrators with whom a respondent does not have or has never had an intimate relationship:

• ‘Family member or relative’ includes blood relatives like parents and children, and other blood relatives that can be cohabitating or non-cohabitating, as well as other household members or relatives by marriage or adoption (e.g. siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, in-laws, etc.);
• ‘Non-family or relative but other known’ as friends, family friends, schoolmates, colleagues, co-workers, supervisor, boss, professor, teacher; any person with some authority as army or police officer, priest, religious leader, judge, doctor; any other person known;
• ‘Any known’ includes family member or relative or other known explained above;
• ‘Stranger’ is someone completely unknown to the respondent.

Multiple victimisation is considering type of perpetrators as current partner, former partner(s), relative(s), friend(s), supervisor(s), other person(s) with authority, other(s) known, stranger(s) or other person(s). Respondent experienced violence by one type if one of them committed violent act, but not others. For example, if respondent experienced violence by more than one former partner, but not by current partner or any non-partner, it is considered as experienced violence by one type of perpetrator.

Regarding disseminated indictor by type of perpetrator, for intimate partners it is calculated out of persons who have ever been in intimate partnership and for non-partners and any it is calculated out of all persons.

Type of violence

Psychological violence by intimate partner includes a range of behaviours, encompassing acts of emotional abuse and controlling behaviour towards the respondent: belittling and humiliating; forbidding the respondent to see friends or family, or to engage in hobbies or other activities; tracking the respondent via GPS, phone or social network; forbidding the respondent to leave the house without permission or locking the respondent up; constantly accusing the respondent of being unfaithful or getting angry if the respondent speaks to another person; forbidding the respondent to work; controlling the finances of the whole family and the respondent’s personal expenses; keeping or taking away the respondent’s ID card/passport to control the respondent; yelling and smashing things or behaving in a certain way with the aim of scaring or intimidating the respondent; threatening to hurt the respondent’s children or other people close to the respondent; threatening to take away the respondent’s children or to deny custody; and threatening to harm them self if the respondent leaves them.

Threatening means behaviour involving fear, such as threatening to harm the respondent in a way that really frightened respondent. Regarding the disseminated indictors by type of violence, threatening means only threatening and not physical or sexual violence.

Physical violence refers to a range of violent types of behaviour or acts involving harm and fear, such as pushing or shoving the respondent, pulling their hair, slapping or throwing something at them; punching the respondent or beating them with an object; kicking; burning (with fire or acid or by some other means); trying to choke or strangle the respondent; threatening to use or actually using a knife, gun, acid or something similar; or using force against the respondent in some other way with the aim of hurting them. Regarding the disseminated indictors by type of violence, physical violence means only physical and not sexual violence.

Sexual violence includes unwanted sexual intercourse through force or physical violence or by exploiting a situation in which the respondent is not able to refuse sexual intercourse because they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It also includes unwanted sexual intercourse which the respondent is too afraid to refuse and cases in which the respondent is forced into unwanted sexual intercourse with another person or persons. Attempts to carry out any of the above acts or any other unwanted sexual behaviour that the respondent finds degrading or humiliating are included as well. Finally, this type of violence also covers unwanted sexual touching by non-partners. 

Sexual harassment at work covers the following unwanted behaviours with sexual connotations that happen in a work context: inappropriate staring or leering; being exposed to sexually explicit images or videos; indecent sexual jokes or offensive remarks about a person’s body or private life; inappropriate invitations to go out on a date or suggestions for sexual activity of any kind; unsolicited physical contact; inappropriate advances on social networking websites or sexually explicit emails or text messages; threatening with unpleasant consequences if sexual proposals or advances are refused; and any other similar behaviour with sexual connotations that took place at work or work-related settings and that offended, humiliated, or intimidated the respondent. Prevalence of sexual harassment at work is calculated out of persons ever worked.

Repeated violence

Repeated violence (series of episodes) refers to similar violent episodes repeated by the same person(s), during which similar thing(s) are done under the same circumstances more than once. For instance, a woman might be beaten by her partner in several episodes over a period of three years.

Reporting or telling other people about violent experiences

Estimating unreported violence is an important aspect in defining targeted policies to eradicate violence. Indicators on reporting of violence show whether the respondent talked with anyone about the experienced violence.  Reported violence experienced by intimate partner or by non-partner (to whom it was reported) includes:

• ‘Close person’ that may be family or friend and should be understood in its widest meaning.
• ‘Health or social service’ includes reporting or talking to any doctor or nurse, or any other health, medical or social worker.
• ‘Support service’ means any organisation or official body providing help to victims of violence, e.g. support services, helplines, shelters.
• ‘Police’ covers the situation when respondent herself reported to the police any episode of experienced violence.

Share of persons reported or talked about experiences of violence by to whom is calculated out of persons experienced this type of violence.

Consequences of experienced violence

The consequences of violence are an important consideration both for the victim and for society. Regarding violence experienced by intimate partner or non-partner, indicators for following consequences are disseminated:

• ‘Psychological consequences’ means for instance, depression, panic attacks, problems with concentration, problems in sleeping or eating or other consequences.
• ‘Physical injury’ is damage to the body caused by external force as cuts, scratches, bruises, burns, broken bones or fractures, head, internal or genital injuries, miscarriage, pregnancy due to rape or any other type of injury due to physical or sexual violence.
• ‘Felt that their life was in danger’ means that the respondent felt that her life was in danger when any of violent episodes happened.

Share of persons experienced this type of violence and consequences due to this is calculated out of all relevant persons: for intimate partner violence out of persons ever been in intimate partnership; for non-partner and any perpetrator out of all persons.

Personal characteristics

Indicators are disseminated by following personal characteristics:

• Disability status is measured through a concept of general activity limitation (limitation in activities people usually do because of health problems for at least the past 6 months).
• Educational attainment level refers to the highest level in the international standard classification of education (ISCED) which an individual has successfully completed.
• Degree of urbanization of the area where a person has their usual residence is classified in local administrative units at level 2 as cities, towns and suburbs, or rural areas, based on the share of local population living in urban clusters and in urban centres.

Indicators are calculated as share of persons with a certain personal characteristic (e.g. severely limited) who experienced violence (e.g. by intimate partner) out of all persons with this personal characteristic (e.g. severely limited).

National difficulties of implementation of the common EU-GBV questionnaire

Countries were requested to translate and adopt the common EU-GBV survey questionnaire in their national context: relevant languages to be used and software used to collect the data. The translation and adaption of the questions, terms, definitions and concepts was done via pretesting. In general, countries did not report particular difficulties in translating the definitions and concepts. However, few countries had to find proper translation for the word ‘episode’.

Issues appeared with implementation of the questionnaire:

• FR had an issue with implementation of the routing and therefore not all relevant questions were asked when applicable. Therefore, indicators are not disseminated for reporting and consequences of non-partner violence, and accordingly of violence by any perpetrator.

Statistical unit of EU-GBV survey is individual. Only one person per household can be interviewed and proxy is not allowed. The reason is the safety of the respondent and the interviewer, as it is not uncommon for the abuser to be part of the victim’s household.

The EU-GBV results cover individual persons, residing in the territory of the Member States and participating countries at the time of data collection. Persons living in collective households and in institutions are excluded from the target population as individuals living in institutions (e.g., hospitals, prisons or religious institutions) are often not listed in the household/person survey frames and this makes it difficult to contact them.

Table 1. Gross sample size by sex of respondent.

EU-GBV survey includes all EU Member States, but out of them 11 Member States (BE, EE, FR, HR, LV, LT, MT, NL, PT, SI, FI) covered in the survey men, and accordingly, data for violence experienced by total population are available for them.

Data collection for the first wave covers the 2020-2024 period. The duration of the fieldwork was recommended as four-months period based on national timetables (wave 2021). However, the sensitive nature of the survey means that staff may encounter many refusals and may need to make return visits, ring people back, or even do re-sampling and therefore, fieldwork period could be prolonged in order to ensure high quality data.

Table 2. Fieldwork period.

To develop efficient and effective policy and legal responses to limit/stop gender-based violence, accurate data are necessary. Thus, the Gender Equality Strategy of the European Commission for 2020-2025 calls for comprehensive, updated and comparable data for policies on combating gender-based violence. The EU-GBV survey is not covered by an official EU legislation and the first wave of the data collection in 2020-2024 takes place on a voluntary basis.

Data collection on gender-based violence is implemented based on the Commission implementing decision on the financing of the Programme for single market, competitiveness of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises, and European statistics and the adoption of the work programme for 2021-2024. Even more, Regulation (EU) 2021/690 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 April 2021 requests to provide high quality, timely and reliable statistics to support the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Union Skills Policy, including statistics on the labour market, employment, education and training, income, living conditions, poverty, inequality, social protection, gender-based violence, undeclared work, and satellite accounts on skills.

Data on GBV are collected in order to address the requirement of Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe, Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, Istanbul 2011). The Gender Equality Strategy announced measures to obtain the same objectives as the Istanbul Convention. Therefore, on 8 March 2022, the Commission adopted a legislative proposal on combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Accordingly, the Directive (EU) 2024/1385 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2024 on combating violence against women and domestic violence includes a provision to conduct population-based surveys at regular intervals to assess the prevalence and trends.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164) stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines. It ensures the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data, with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Publication rules:

• estimates should not be published if based on fewer than 20 sample observations or if the non-response for the item concerned exceeds 50%;
• estimates should be published with a flag if based on 20 to 49 sample observations or if non-response for the item concerned exceeds 20% and is lower or equal to 50%;
• estimates shall be published in the normal way when based on 50 or more sample observations and non-response for the item concerned is lower than 20%.

Flags:

u     unreliable (i.e. due to small number of observations)

Indicators on gender-based violence against women based on EU-GBV survey were published on the 25^th of November 2024, covering the EU-27 MS and the estimated EU-average. Data on violence experienced by total population were disseminated on the 20^th of March 2025, covering 11 Member States (BE, EE, FR, HR, LV, LT, MT, NL, PT, SI, FI), that covered in the survey men.

Please refer to the Release calendar - Eurostat publicly available on the Eurostat’s website.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice, Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see section 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity'), respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

The access to the publications disseminated to present the survey results is provided in the EU-GBV dedicated section: Overview - Gender-based violence - Eurostat

Please consult: Database - Gender-based violence - Eurostat

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Please find the information a the Eurostat Website.

Information is provided in the Methodological manual for the EU survey on gender-based violence against women and other forms of inter-personal violence (EU-GBV) (available here) as well as in Statistics on crime and criminal justice dedicated group in CIRCABC.

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Common questionnaire and the methodology have been developed for the EU-GBV survey that are followed by the countries in order to implement the survey. Please see more details in the Methodological manual for the EU survey on gender-based violence against women and other forms of inter-personal violence (EU-GBV).

EU-GBV survey questionnaire and methodology are developed based on the results of the pre-testing and pilot survey. Testing was conducted in 14 countries over the period 2018–2019.

Standardisation is achieved with the common questionnaire and common list and content of target variables. This is complemented by Eurostat consistency and integrity checks on the micro data. In addition, countries should report to Eurostat any deviation from the standard.

EU-GBV statistics have overall high quality. National surveys are considered as reliable sources applying high standards with regard to the methodology. However, the EU-GBV, like any survey, is based upon a sample of the population. The results are therefore subject to the usual types of errors associated with random sampling. Based on the sample size and design in the various Member States and participating countries, Eurostat implements basic guidelines intended to avoid publication of figures that are unreliable and to give warning for low reliability.

The relevance of an instrument has to be assessed in the light of the needs of its users. As for the EU-GBV survey results, the main users are the following:

• institutional users like DG JUST of the Commission and other Commission services;
• statistical users in Eurostat or in Member States and participating countries;
• end users - including the media - interested in data about experienced violence

Eurostat carries out a general Eurostat User Satisfaction Survey every year to collect feedback on the quality of its statistics. The survey is usually addressed to the registered Eurostat users who are mainly students, academic, private users, business, government and international organizations.

EU-GBV results cover national territories of the participating countries.

Data were to be based on a nationally representative sample of the population residing in private households within the country, irrespective of language, nationality or legal residence status. The sampling frame and methods of sample selection were left to the countries’ experiences with other population surveys in which they could ensure that every individual in the target population was assigned a known and non-zero probability of selection. The main condition that needed to be fulfilled is that only one person can be interviewed per household.

The indicative effective sample size defined for the EU-GBV is 5000 respondents per country. However, countries are allowed to increase or decrease the sample size in order to collect high quality data.

Table 3. Gross and net sample size.

Notes:

BE: Based on phase I

FR: Based on phase II (already contacted respondents)

PT: Sampling is based on dwellings, therefore total population is applicable

Standard errors of key indicators are commonly used as a measure of the reliability of data collected through sample survey. EU-GBV survey was designed to provide measure of prevalence of violence during lifetime aged 18-74 persons. The indicative effective sample size was defined taking into account this accuracy requirement.

A non-sampling error is an error in survey estimates which cannot be attributed to sampling fluctuations. Such errors can either be coverage errors, measurement errors, non-response errors, processing errors or model assumption errors.

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A high level of comparability across the participating countries is namely ensured by:

(a)    the use of the same definitions for all countries;

(b)    the transmission to Eurostat of the same list of variables with the same coding;

(c)    the use of common classifications;

(d)    the central validation of data done by Eurostat.

EU-GBV survey data collection follows international standards: ISCO, NACE, ISCED, degree of urbanisation, standardised variables for social surveys.

Historical data; no longer updated or revised.

Historical data; no longer updated or revised.

The EU-GBV is a random sample survey of persons living in private households. The sampling units are dwellings, households or individuals depending on the sampling frame. Different schemes are used to sample the units, ranging from the simple random sampling method to complex stratified multi-stage sampling methods of clusters.

Participation in the survey is voluntary for all participating countries.

Not yet agreed.

There are no constraints on the most appropriate mode of data collection, which can vary from country to country. Nevertheless, due to the sensitive nature of this survey, and research and data-based findings, most recommended mode is face-to-face and computer-assisted methods over other methods. The possibility of self-completion is also supported.

Prior to the dissemination of transmitted national data, Eurostat checks the data quality and consistency. Validation rules are provided in the Eurostat methodological manual.

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