Standard Of Living and Quality Of Life
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Human development,
Index of living,
Standard Of Living and Quality Of Life,
Standard Of Living Vs. Quality Of Life
on Friday 7 September 2012
Standard Of Living Vs. Quality Of Life
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Standard of Living and quality of life are often referred to in discussions about the economic and social well-being of countries and their residents, but what is the difference between the two? The definitions of these terms can be difficult to tease apart and may overlap in some areas, depending on whom you ask. It's more than just a matter of semantics; in fact, knowing the difference can affect how you evaluate a country where you might be looking to invest some money.
Standard of LivingStandard of living generally refers to the level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class, in a certain geographic area. An evaluation of standard of living commonly includes the following factors:
- income
- quality and availability of employment
- class disparity
- poverty rate
- quality and affordability of housing
- hours of work required to purchase necessities
- gross domestic product (GDP)
- inflation rate
- number of paid vacation days per year
- affordable access to quality health care
- quality and availability of education
- life expectancy
- incidence of disease
- cost of goods and services
- infrastructure
- national economic growth
- economic and political stability
- political and religious freedom
- environmental quality
- climate
- safety
When you think about standard of living, you can think about things that are easy to quantify. We can measure factors like life expectancy, inflation rate and the average number of paid vacation days workers receive each year, for example.
Standard of living is often used to compare geographic areas, such as the standard of living in the United States versus Canada, or the standard of living in Milwaukee versus New York City. If you live in a particular country, a certain number of vacation days per year will be the norm. In the United States, it's 10 to 20 days while in Denmark it's 31. Some companies within each country may be more or less generous, but one practice prevails.
One measure of standard of living is the Human Development Index (HDI), developed in 1990 by the United Nations. It considers life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rates and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) to measure a country's level of development.
This should not be the Quality of Life
The idea of a 'standard' may be contrasted with the quality of life, which takes into account not only the material standard of living, but also other more intangible aspects that make up human life, such as leisure, safety, cultural resources, social life, physical health, environmental quality issues, etc. More complex means of measuring well-being must be employed to make such judgements, and these are very often political, thus controversial. Even between two nations or societies that have similar material standards of living, quality of life factors may in fact make one of these places more attractive to a given individual or group.
- freedom from slavery and torture
- equal protection of the law
- freedom from discrimination
- freedom of movement
- freedom of residence within one's home country
- presumption of innocence unless proved guilty
- right to marry
- right to have a family
- right to be treated equally without regard to gender, race, language, religion, political beliefs, nationality, socioeconomic status and more
- right to privacy
- freedom of thought
- freedom of religion
- free choice of employment
- right to fair pay
- equal pay for equal work
- right to vote
- right to rest and leisure
- right to education
- right to human dignity
Comparing the Two
When people think about their own standard of living, the amount of money they bring in might be the first thing that comes to mind. If their income decreases, through job loss, for example, they might consider their standard of living to be decreasing along with it, however is this the case? If you consider the other factors that make up standard of living, then chances are your overall standard of living is still quite good, despite your present lack of income. For example, if you have a good chance of securing another quality job, your country's economy is generally strong, you still have access to health care, and if the cost of goods and services is reasonable enough that you can more or less get by in the meantime, until you find a new job, then you're doing all right.
Standard
of living is somewhat of a flawed indicator, however. Looking at our
earlier list, while the United States, for example, might be considered
to rank highly in all of these areas, most people would agree that for
some segments of the population, the standard of living in the United
States is actually quite low. In East St. Louis, Ill., for example, the
quality and availability of employment has historically been poor;
environmental quality is below average for the U.S., the incidence of
disease is high and life expectancy is also below average. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 census,
the number of families living below the federal poverty level in East
St. Louis was 35.1%, compared to a national average of 12.4%.
Similar to standard of living, what would be considered a good quality of life by one person, may not be considered as such by another. The earlier list of quality of life factors might also be considered to be a list of things the United States offers. "The Economist", for example, produces an index that attempts to rate the quality of life in various countries. Predictably, developed nations like Norway, Australia and Luxembourg come out on top and less-developed countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan come out on the bottom, according to "The Economist's" quality-of-life index. That said, there are certainly segments of the population, in countries like the United States, in which people don't have the right to marry whomever they choose, are discriminated against, are treated as guilty until proven innocent, do not have access to a meaningful and useful education and/or do not get equal pay for equal work.
Similar to standard of living, what would be considered a good quality of life by one person, may not be considered as such by another. The earlier list of quality of life factors might also be considered to be a list of things the United States offers. "The Economist", for example, produces an index that attempts to rate the quality of life in various countries. Predictably, developed nations like Norway, Australia and Luxembourg come out on top and less-developed countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan come out on the bottom, according to "The Economist's" quality-of-life index. That said, there are certainly segments of the population, in countries like the United States, in which people don't have the right to marry whomever they choose, are discriminated against, are treated as guilty until proven innocent, do not have access to a meaningful and useful education and/or do not get equal pay for equal work.
Index of living
An assessment of living standards using indicators such as access to health care, standard of education, house ownership, car ownership, take-home pay, employment rates, access to amenity, and so forth. Fifty-three indicators may be used, and are analysed so that areas of high living standards have a low composite index and vice versa. The spatial analysis of these data may be set out for a region or for a nation. In the UK standards of living are best in South-East England and worst in the North and West.
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