Data extracted: July 2024.
Planned article update: September 2026.
Highlights
Traditionally, the central measure of national accounts, has been divided by the total number of inhabitants to create a proxy measure for evaluating living standards – GDP per inhabitant. While GDP continues to be used for monitoring economic developments, playing an important role in economic decision-making, it is increasingly complemented by additional indicators to inform policy debates on social and environmental issues. This is because GDP doesn’t take account of externalities such as environmental sustainability or issues such as income distribution or social inclusion; these are increasingly seen as important drivers for sustainable development and the quality of life.
The quality of life can be defined as the general well-being of people living in society. It is a broad concept that encompasses a number of dimensions, both objective factors (material resources, health, work status, living conditions and so on) and the subjective perceptions that people have (in other words, how they feel and view their own lives). In recent years, a growing share of people living in the European Union (EU) have taken advantage of improvements in transport and communication links to leave behind some of the perceived negative characteristics associated with urban life in search of a better quality of life in more rural areas.
This article seeks to offer a portrait of the quality of life in rural areas of the EU, identifying the benefits and challenges that people living in rural areas face. It forms part of Eurostat’s online publication Rural Europe.
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(% share of people, 2023)
Source: Eurostat (ilc_mddw04), (ilc_mddw05) and (ilc_mddw06)
Accessibility
Accessibility can be broadly defined as how quickly and easily a destination can be reached given the available means of transport. It is increasingly considered a key policy goal in land-use, transport and regional planning. A major challenge faced by people living in rural areas is a lack of access to a range of services: where is the nearest school, bank, health centre, pharmacy, supermarket, or cultural centre and how easy is it to get there?
People living in cities, towns and suburbs generally have better access to a wide range of services when compared with those living in rural areas. Territorial disparities in access to services may be amplified by demographic developments – for example, the depopulation of rural areas in the EU may directly impact commercial and public service provisions. This may reflect lower levels of demand, whereby the number of inhabitants in rural areas falls below a critical mass of people that are required to sustain the economic viability of certain services.
Remoteness can play an important role when assessing accessibility issues. Figures 1 and 2 present information on the share of rural populations living within 15 minutes driving time of a primary school or of main health care services. The data uses level 2 of the degree of urbanisation classification, which identifies – from most to least densely populated areas
- villages
- dispersed rural areas
- mostly uninhabited rural areas.
As may be expected, accessibility was generally higher for people living in villages than it was for people living in mostly uninhabited areas. For example, 98.5% of the EU’s (excluding Estonia, Latvia and Malta) population living in villages in 2023 could drive to a primary school within 15 minutes, while a lower share (95.1%) was observed for people living in mostly uninhabited areas.
Looking in more detail at the accessibility of primary schools in 2023, the following points can be noted.
- In most EU countries, the vast majority of the rural population lived within 15 minutes driving time of a primary school; this was also the case for people living in mostly uninhabited areas.
- Among rural populations, the highest levels of accessibility for primary schools were generally recorded for people living in villages and the lowest levels for those living in mostly uninhabited areas
- in Germany, the lowest levels of access were observed for people living in dispersed rural areas
- in Lithuania and Portugal, the highest levels of access were recorded for people living in dispersed rural areas.
Figure 2 concerns the accessibility of main healthcare services, these are generally considered to be hospitals offering in-patient services, although the definitions applied may vary (for example, there may be a minimum threshold for the number of beds; some healthcare facilities without in-patient services may be included; some hospital facilities providing out-patient services may be included).
- Compared with the situation for primary schools, a lower share of the EU’s (excluding Estonia and Greece) rural population had access to main healthcare services within 15 minutes driving time. In 2023, 61.3% of people living in villages could drive to a main healthcare service within 15 minutes, while less than half (49.3%) of those living in mostly uninhabited areas could do so.
- Among rural populations, the highest levels of access to main healthcare services in individual EU countries were generally recorded for people living in villages and the lowest levels for those living in mostly uninhabited areas
- in Cyprus and the Netherlands (that are both relatively densely populated territories with relatively few people living in rural areas), the lowest levels of access were observed for people living in villages
- in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden, the highest levels of access were recorded for people living in dispersed rural areas.
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Map 1 provides an alternative presentation of information about the accessibility of primary education and main healthcare services. It confirms that people living in the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the EU often face considerable challenges to access basic services that contribute to the quality of their lives.
Source: TomTom Multinet, 2020, Geostat population grid 2018, Eurostat-GISCO school and hospital locations, 2020
Based on the residential population grid (1 km² cells), a study on road transport performance was conducted by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy. It used 3 metrics to develop a new framework for assessing transport performance
- accessibility is defined as the total number of destinations that can be reached within a fixed period of time (for example, a 90-minute threshold) – it depends on the density and speed of transport networks and the spatial distribution of destinations
- proximity is the total number of destinations located within a fixed distance (for example, within a 120 km radius) – it captures the spatial distribution of destinations
- performance is the ratio between accessibility and proximity, comparing the number of accessible destinations to the number of nearby destinations; the result is expressed as an index in percentage terms, with higher values indicating better performance for the mode of transport under investigation.
Detailed data on transport performance can be aggregated – using population weights – to provide information, for example, by degree of urbanisation, by region, or for whole countries. In 2021, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Latvia had the lowest ratios of transport performance in rural areas (each reporting an index value that was less than 50.0%). By contrast, the highest ratios of road transport performance in rural areas were recorded in Malta, Cyprus, Belgium and the Netherlands (with values in the range of 89.0% to 90.5%).
Figure 3 shows transport performance by car, providing disaggregated information for rural areas by degree of urbanisation level 2 (data for villages, dispersed rural areas and mostly uninhabited areas). In 2021, the highest ratios of transport performance by car were generally recorded for villages and the lowest for mostly uninhabited rural areas. There were, however, several exceptions
- in Belgium, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden, the highest ratio was recorded for dispersed rural areas and the lowest for mostly uninhabited rural areas
- in Hungary, the highest ratio was recorded for villages and the lowest for dispersed rural areas
- in Malta, the highest ratio was recorded for mostly uninhabited rural areas and the lowest for dispersed rural areas.
A more detailed breakdown of transport performance by car for predominantly rural regions – defined at NUTS level 3 – is presented in Figure 4.
- Predominantly rural regions characterised by the highest ratios of transport performance by car were primarily located in western EU countries and on the Iberian Peninsula. There were 7 regions that had ratios of more than 90.0%
- Oeste and Lezíria do Tejo in Portugal
- Arr. Ath and Arr. Waremme in Belgium
- Eure-et-Loir and Eure in France
- Alzey-Worms In Germany
- Predominantly rural regions characterised by the lowest ratios of transport performance by car were primarily located in south-eastern Europe, across Bulgaria, Greece and Romania; they were joined by a mountainous region from western Austria, Osttirol. The lowest ratio was recorded in the north-eastern Bulgarian region of Silistra, at 11.1%.
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