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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
The well-being of European Muslims is key to their ability to fully develop and apply their talents to the advantage of Europe and its member states. State level efforts to assess well-being have been promoted by David Cameron (Mulholland and Watt, 2010) and Nicholas Sarkozy (Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi, 2009), and are also evident in Germany (Gjoksi, 2010) and the Netherlands (de Jonge, 2009), as we discussed in Chapter Two. These are being considered in tandem with the European benchmarking discussions (European Parliament, 2007). In the spirit of these projects, we examine in this chapter the life satisfaction and general happiness of Muslims in Europe along with their well-being in several specific key areas of life (European Parliament, 2007), including income, health, education, employment, awareness of political information, and access to information sources.
Muslim youth
The attitudes and achievements of young Muslims may be the best indicator of the general well-being of the religious minority in Europe. A 2008/9 survey commissioned by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights with youth 12–18 years old provides a glimpse of the background and life chances of Muslim young people in comparison to their non-Muslim counterparts in two of the states we are examining, France and the UK (FRA, 2010). (Spain was also included in the study.) Noting ‘the absence of evidence about the experience of young Muslims in EU Member States’ and the extent to which it frustrates policy development, FRA (2010: 16) requested this research from ‘a consortium of three academic institutions experienced in the area of survey research with young people … from minority backgrounds … the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha … the lead university; … Université de Bordeaux; and the University of Edinburgh’ (FRA, 2010: 16). The research team in each of the states surveyed 1,000 youths aged 12–18 years old in the member state, equally representing Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as males and females, ‘to explore the experiences, attitudes and behaviours of Muslim and non-Muslim youths’ (FRA, 2010: 16).
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