Assessing Ill‐Being and Economic Stress: Negative Inputs and Civil Society in Europe

ABSTRACT Unemployment, job insecurity, and inflation are major economic factors that contribute to stress and anxiety among the population, often reflected in reported levels of ill‐being. This study examined how these adverse economic conditions impact ill‐being across European countries from 2005 to 2019. The aim was to identify nations that manage to minimize ill‐being despite facing significant negative economic events. To do this, we applied a benchmarking method called data envelopment analysis (DEA). While DEA is commonly used to study well‐being, it is not typically suited to analyze ill‐being. For this reason, we are the first to apply a variant of this method, known as anti‐efficiency or pessimistic DEA, in the context of well‐being research. Our findings show that Nordic countries are particularly effective in mitigating the impact of economic challenges on ill‐being. Furthermore, we observe that countries with efficient public administration systems tend to better manage ill‐being.