1. Quality of Life and Development
Indicators and Measurement Indices
Presented By: Ms. Nishu Kanwar
Bhati, Ph.D
2. Quality of life refers to the level
of well-being of the society and
the degree of satisfaction of a
number of human needs.
3. «A concept involving a relative
assessment of human well-being in terms
of the overall standards of living of society
and the degree of excellence of an
individual’s life style»
4. QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
The Idea of Development The development of a nation or
community is now seen to be concerned with two
elements –
general resource development and
human resource development.
6. Human resource development
• Human resource development, however, is
more directly concerned with upgrading
human qualities, mainly through education
and training, to enable individuals to develop
to their maximum potential.
• Measured in terms of Human Development
Index(HDI)
11. Perceived levels of happiness and life
satisfaction in regard to work income health
leisure time family life housing environment
government and others ESCAP points out an
interesting lack of correlation between the
three categories of indicators. While income
levels can go up people surveyed can claim
that they are less happy and so on.
12. Professor Yassin, also stresses, that these elements cannot be
made operational and that quality of life development cannot be
sustained unless the adult population has a set of values which
will foster and promote their development. These values are as
follows:
• Diligence and Industriousness:
• Discipline and Respect for Knowledge:
• Integrity and moral ethics:
• Tolerance:
• Loyalty:
13. The need for measurement beyond
GDP
• GDP is an aggregate measure and as such
cannot inform us about wealth distribution
amongst the population
• GDP and other economic measures need to be
complemented with indicators covering other
important domains in order to measure well-
being
14. 8+1 dimensions of quality of life
The ‘Beyond GDP’ conference (2007),
the Stiglitz/Sen/Fitoussi (SSF) Commission (2009),
the Eurostat Feasibility study for Well-Being
Indicators (2008) and the European Commission
‘GDP and beyond’ communication (2009). The
European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) set up
a Sponsorship Group (SpG) on Measuring Progress,
Well-being and Sustainable Development
15. • Material living conditions (income,
consumption and material conditions)
• Productive or main activity
• Health
• Education
• Leisure and social interactions
• Economic and physical safety
• Governance and basic rights
• Natural and living environment
• Overall experience of life
17. Productive or main activity
Indicators measuring both the quantity and the
quality of jobs available (working hours, balancing
work and non-working life, safety and ethics of
employment)
18. Health
measured using objective health outcome
indicators such as life expectancy, infant
mortality, the number of healthy life years, but
also more subjective indicators, such as
access to healthcare and self-evaluation of
one’s health.
19. Education
population’s educational attainment,
the number of early school leavers,
self-assessed and assessed skills and
participation in life-long learning.
20. measured in terms of how often citizens
spend time with people at sporting or
cultural events or if they volunteer for
different types of organisations.
21. Safety is measured in terms of physical safety
(e.g. the number of homicides per country)
and economic safety. Safety is measured in
terms of physical safety (e.g. the number of
homicides per country) and economic safety.
The ability to face unexpected expenses and
having or not having arrears are therefore
used as proxy variables
22. Natural and living environment
Both subjective (individuals’ own perceptions) and
objective (the amount of pollutants present in the air)
indicators are included.
23. Overall experience of life
life satisfaction (cognitive
appreciation),
affect (a person’s feelings or
emotional states, both positive and
negative, typically measured with
reference to a particular point in time)
and
eudaemonics (a sense of having
meaning and purpose in one’s life, or
good psychological functioning.).
25. World Happiness Report
• Developed by the United Nations and published
recently along with the HDI, this report combines
both objective and subjective measures to rank
countries by happiness, which is deemed as the
ultimate outcome of a high quality of life.
• It uses surveys from real GDP per capita, healthy
life expectancy, having someone to count on,
perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom
from corruption, and generosity to derive the
final score.
26. Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI)
• Developed by sociologist Morris David Morris
in the 1970s, based on basic literacy, infant
mortality, and life expectancy
27. Happy Planet Index
Uses each country'secological footprint as
an indicator
The 2012 list is instead topped by Costa
Rica,Vietnam and Colombia.[9]
29. Legatum Prosperity Index
An annual ranking, developed by the Legatum
Institute, of 142 countries.
Factors including wealth, economic growth,
education, health, personal well-being, and quality of
life.
In the 2014 rankings, Norway tops the list followed
by Switzerland and New Zealand.
30. The 8 sub-indexes are:
Economy
Entrepreneurship & Opportunity
Governance
Education
Health
Safety & Security
Personal Freedom
Social Capital
31. The Were-to-be-born
Material well-being as measured by GDP per capita (in $, at 2006
constant PPPS)
Life expectancy at birth
The quality of family life based primarily on divorce rates
The state of political freedoms
Job security (measured by the unemployment rate)
Climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of
minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees
Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm
rainfall)
Personal physical security ratings (based primarily on
recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and
terrorism)
Quality of community life (based on membership in social
organisations)
Governance (measured by ratings for corruption)
Gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held
by women)
32. OECD Better Life Index
• Housing: housing conditions and spendings (e.g. real
estate pricing)
• Income: household income and financial wealth
• Jobs: earnings, job security and unemployment
• Community: quality of social support network
• Education: education and what you get out of it
• Environment: quality of environment
(e.g. environmental health)
• Governance: involvement in democracy
• Health
• Life Satisfaction: level of happiness
• Safety: murder and assault rates
• Work-life balance
33. What is Development?
• Though the term development usually refers to
economic progress, it can apply to political,
social, and technological progress as well.
Economic Development
Social Development
34. Measuring Economic Development
Gross Domestic Product
GDP – total value of goods and services produced in a
country
Gross National Product
GNP – Including income from investments abroad
Purchasing Power Parity
PPP – Takes into account local cost of living and is usually
expressed per capita
GDP/GNP per capita
Total value divided by the total population
35. Problems of using economic indicators
such as GDP/GNP/PPP to measure
development
Currency fluctuations
Prices of goods and services (PPP)
Distribution of Wealth
Dependency on one industry (skills, location, fluctuations)
Tax and govt spending on public goods
Informal economy and unpaid work eg child care and
subsistence farming, bartering
Monetary value of goods traded can fluctuate, especially
agriculture
Accurate info difficult to obtain, high informal sector, rural
economy, ineffective governance
% of public and private sector
Remittances from migrant workers are not included
36. Problems of using economic indicators such as
GDP/GNP/PPP to measure development
Negative externalities of economic growth are not included (eg pollution,
environmental damage)
Environmental services such as the benefits derived from standing forest
are not included.
Basically it is only a measure of the economic value of what is
produced and paid for. Does not take into account what was
produced, the environmental and social costs, how the wealth
is distributed, who spends it and what it is spent on.
37. Social indices
Demographic statistics on mortality and
fertility can be used to measure
development.
Infant mortality
Life expectancy
Fertility rate
38. Other social indices
There are a whole range of indicators which give us some idea about
people’s quality of life. These can be broadly described as social indices
although they could be linked to the economy, environment and politics.
Access to safe water Crime levels
Access to broadband internet connection Subjective life satisfaction
Male and female literacy rates Obesity
Number of people per car Corruption perception index
Pop per doc Number in higher education
Food consumption Energy
consumption
Mortality rates for diseases Pollution levels air/water
39. Relative / absolute poverty
The two different Human Poverty Indices reflect there are
different definitions of poverty.
Absolute Poverty – Those living in absolute poverty are unable to
satisfy their basic needs for survival; water, clothing, food,
shelter and basic medicine. World Bank figure of $1.25 per day.
Relative Poverty – A level of poverty relative to the rest of the
population of the country. For example below 50% of average
earning.
40. Multiple component indices
(composite indicators)
All the indices so far have been single component indices. There are also
multiple component indices. These combine a number of single
component indices to give a combined score.
Human Development Index (0-1)
HDI – PPP, life expectancy, adult literacy, average number of years schooling
Human Poverty Index 1 (for developing countries)
HPI-1 - % of pop with life expectancy of <40, % of adult illiteracy, % without safe
water, % without access to health services, % of under fives who are underweight
Human Poverty Index 2 (for developed countries)
HPI-2 - % of pop with life expectancy of <60, % of adult illiteracy, % of people
below the poverty line (50% of medium income), rate of long term employment
>12 months
41. Other multiple component indices
(composite indicators)
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and Gender-
related Development Index (GDI) measure gender
inequality.
Other quality of life indicators could measure a variety
of social/economic/political and environmental
indicators.
