Quality of Life

Quality of life, the degree to which an individual is healthy, comfortable, and able to participate in or enjoy life events. The term quality of life is inherently.
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What is 'Quality of Life'

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One of the reasons for this apparent inconsistency is that social transfers social security benefits, reimbursements etc.

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Starting in the trend is positive for both indicators, but it can be noted that growth is at a slower pace for the part of the Gross National Product that households can benefit from. Social, environmental and economic progress does not always go hand in hand with an increase in GDP. For example, if a country decides to cut down all its forests, it will dramatically increase its timber exports, thus increasing its GDP. If GDP were the only indicator of quality of life, this would mean that the population of this country would have greatly improved its well-being.

GDP definitely measures quantity, but not necessarily other aspects of production such as distribution and potential impacts for the future. GDP is an aggregate measure and as such cannot inform us about wealth distribution amongst the population. The increase could benefit only a small part of society, leaving many groups of citizens at the same level in terms of wealth, or even worse off than before.


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GDP and other economic measures need to be complemented with indicators covering other important domains in order to measure well-being. Moving beyond economic performance, a more comprehensive, wide-ranging approach is needed when trying to define and measure quality of life.

While it remains very difficult to provide an overall definition with specific measurable indicators, quality of life definitely includes more than just economic production and GDP figures.


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It should also be stressed that some of the indicators included in this scoreboard are subjective. They therefore reflect the perceptions of individuals, their own assessment of different aspects of life and overall quality of life and their often different priorities.

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This type of data can only be obtained through surveys. Different examples throughout Europe show that GDP does not always go hand in hand with other indicators that contribute to a better quality of life. These are only a few examples that demonstrate the need to complement GDP and other economic indicators with a wider range of data, in order to be able to get a broader picture.

Following these, there was a growing consensus that societies need to find information to complement that provided by GDP figures. This provides a much larger context for the information provided by national accounts aggregates. It presented its final report in November The report stressed the need for the European Statistical System to use a multidimensional approach when defining and trying to measure quality of life, to develop indicators for measuring sustainability and to use complementary indicators to the GDP coming from National Accounts that would better reflect the situation of households.

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An Expert Group coordinated by Eurostat with the mandate of developing a scoreboard of Quality of Life Indicators was set up on the basis of this recommendation. It included experts coming from 10 national statistical offices, scientific experts and representatives of international organisations such as the OECD and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions Eurofound. It met bi-annualy between and and delivered the Final report of the expert group on quality of life indicators in The list of indicators that was set up by Eurostat with the help of this Expert Group can be found on the dedicated section on Quality of life.

Ideally, they should be considered simultaneously, because of potential trade-offs between them:. Material living standards are measured on the basis of three sub-dimensions: Income is an important indicator as it has an impact on most of the other indicators in the framework. There are several different indicators within this sub dimension, taken from both national accounts and household surveys net national income, household disposable income based on the EU-SILC. The same is true for consumption, within which some aggregated indicators are taken from national accounts actual individual household consumption per capita , and other indicators for household consumption are to be developed in the future from the Household Budget Survey.

Joint indicators of income, consumption and wealth are also under development and have the potential to provide the most complete perspective on the situation of households. Nevertheless, for the moment the wealth aspect is covered in this framework under the sub-dimension Economic safety. Material conditions deprivation and housing provide important complementary information to these money-based approaches and the indicators selected for this sub-dimension are also based on the EU-SILC.

When it comes to quality of life, what matters to you?

Productive or main activity dimension is measured through three sub-dimensions: Indicators measuring both the quantity and the quality of jobs available working hours, balancing work and non-working life, safety and ethics of employment are some of the indicators used in the European Union to measure this aspect of quality of life, coming mostly from the EU-LFS , and also Structure of Earnings Survey and administrative data. Not all the population is in employment, therefore it is important to include in this dimension also indicators referring to the inactive population and to unpaid work.

Analysis of HRQOL surveillance data can identify subgroups with relatively poor perceived health and help to guide interventions to improve their situations and avert more serious consequences. Interpretation and publication of these data can help identify needs for health policies and legislation, help to allocate resources based on unmet needs, guide the development of strategic plans, and monitor the effectiveness of broad community interventions. Skip directly to search Skip directly to A to Z list Skip directly to navigation Skip directly to page options Skip directly to site content.

Recommend on Facebook Tweet Share Compartir. On this Page Why is quality of life of important? What is quality of life? Development and psychometric properties. Soc Sci Med ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Population assessment of health-related quality of life. Psychometric evaluation of the SF health survey in Medicare managed care. Health Care Financ Rev ;25 4: