*Social policy
*Quality of life
*Standard of living: income and consumption
*Social and symbolic capital. The study of social values
*Social economy and inclusion
*Poverty and vulnerable groups
*Social policy
The IQRL has a major contribution to the creation of a new field of study in Romania: the social policies.
Among the main research topics on social policies of the institute there are the following: the dynamics of social policies in Romania, in the recent past, the comparative analysis of social policies among countries in transition and UE countries, social policies financing, targeted social policies, like social protection, education and health social policies, housing policy, gender policy, social development, etc.
Our institute has conducted comparative analyses and evaluations of the social policies adopted in Romania, and contributed to the elaboration of the social corpus of laws issued by the government. We look at the evolution of reforms in the social services: social protection and social assistance, public health and education. In this regard, IQRL is collecting data and monitoring laws, decrees and decisions regarding the social and economic domains. The institute studies also the consequences that social policies have on different population segments, like children, young people, aged persons, socially disadvantaged groups, issuing social reports and works on a very large set of topics regarding social policies and social development.
*Quality of life
The Quality of Life in Romania is a major research program which aims:
- to create a full image of the quality of life as a general diagnosis and on its components: the material status, health, work, education, family life, housing, public services, social services, subjective welfare, and others.
- to monitor social change within the various studied domains;
- to explore the cross-relations of various life components, in order to understand the way in which these combine and create a quality life;
- to identify vulnerable groups and to describe their quality of life.
The research methodology is based on researches conducted on representative national samples, including objective and subjective indices.
The data set Quality of life Diagnosis includes a continuous line of annual researches conducted between 1990 and 1999, and several individual researches from 2003, 2006, and 2010.
*Social and symbolic capital. The study of social values
This research program analyzes the layers and the structure of the human capital in the Romanian society, emphasizing, through comparative analysis, the links with the society development, proposing further development policies.
The study of social values is an important research direction of this program, the IQLR project being part of a large European research project of longitudinal and horizontal comparative analysis. In the years of 1993, 1999, 2005, 2008 and 2012 our institute has conducted the Romanian versions of European Values Survey (EVS) and World Values Survey (WVS), the oldest comparative researches in the world, periodically conducted at European and global level.
More details of the activities within this program and on research results could be accessed on the website of the Romanian Group for the Study of Social Values.
*Standard of living: income and consumption
Standard of living assesses the economic and obiective dimension of the quality of life. This dimension should not miss from a comprehensive image of the quality of life. For this reason, our programme is defined annual and includes two kinds of themes: perennial themes and themes on the stage.
Continous themes are the following:
- The dynamics of the level of living objective indicators regarding Romanian population in the European context: demography, employment, income, consumption of goods and services, consumption patterns;
- The updating of the structural terms included in the minimal basket of consumption, in two variants: the decent minimal consumption basket and the basket of subzistence;
- Studies regarding the cost of life and the evolution of poverty phenomenon. The comparison of the income indicators to the minimum consumption basket conceived in The Institute for Researching Quality of Life from Bucharest, for different but representative types of families from Romania.
In 2014, besides the perennial themes, we will achieve:
- a study regarding the quality of water and the population water consumption in Romania;
- a study regarding the news from the housing field in Romania;
- the starting of a basis of indicators regarding the level of living in Romania (in European and glogal context). This project will become a perennial one from 2015.
*Social economy and inclusion
This program contributes to the assesment of the role of social economy institutions in producing social welfare. Through the conducted studies, the ways in which these institutions are increasing the social inclusion of vulnerable groups are stresset out.
An important role is given to the demand and supply of social economy, in order to determine dramatic and durable social change, by improving this phenomenon. The methods used are various and fully adapted to the specific objectives.
The data, conclusions, and recommendations coming out from these studies are essential in designing fundamental economic and social policies at national, regional, and local level.
The results of these researches are available in the section Publications of the site, and also on the page: http://www.inclusivactiv.ro/.
*Poverty and vulnerable groups
In the difficult context of transition, the poverty topic was a top-priority research program for IQLR. Therefore, a number of researches were conducted in this field, and completed with thorough diagnoses and action guidelines (for social policies). All these results could be found in the Publications section of the IQLR site.
Among population segments with high poverty risk we could enumerate: large households, households with children (especially those with three and more children), children (0-14 years), young people (15-24), persons with low level of education etc.
