Unlike
per capita GDP or
standard of living, both of which can be measured in financial terms, it is harder to make objective or long-term measurements of the quality of life experienced by nations or other groups of people. Researchers have begun in recent times to distinguish two aspects of personal well-being:
Emotional well-being, in which respondents are asked about the quality of their everyday emotional experiencesthe frequency and intensity of their experiences of, for example, joy, stress, sadness, anger and affectionand
life evaluation, in which respondents are asked to think about their life in general and evaluate it against a scale. Such and other systems and scales of measurement have been in use for some time. Research has attempted to examine the relationship between quality of life and productivity. There are many different methods of measuring quality of life in terms of health care, wealth, and materialistic goods. However, it is much more difficult to measure
meaningful expression of one's desires. One way to do so is to evaluate the extent to which individuals have fulfilled their own ideals. Quality of life can simply mean
happiness, which is the subjective state of mind. By using that mentality, citizens of a developing country appreciate more since they are content with the basic necessities of health care, education and child protection. According to ecological economist
Robert Costanza:
Human Development Index Perhaps the most commonly used international measure of development is the
Human Development Index (HDI), which combines measures of life expectancy, education, and standard of living, in an attempt to quantify the options available to individuals within a given society. The HDI is used by the
United Nations Development Programme in their
Human Development Report. However, since 2010, The
Human Development Report introduced an
Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the original HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for
inequality), while the original HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development (or the maximum level of HDI) that could be achieved if there was no inequality."
World Happiness Report The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey on the state of global happiness. It ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, reflecting growing global interest in using happiness and substantial well-being as an indicator of the quality of human development. Its growing purpose has allowed governments, communities and organizations to use appropriate data to record happiness in order to enable policies to provide better lives. The reports review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness. Developed once again 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 the ultimate outcome of a high quality of life. It uses surveys from
Gallup, 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. Happiness is already recognized as an important concept in global public policy. The World Happiness Report indicates that some regions have, in recent years, been experiencing progressive inequality of happiness.
Other measures The
Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) is a measure developed by sociologist
M. D. Morris in the 1970s, based on basic literacy, infant mortality, and life expectancy. Although not as complex as other measures, and now essentially replaced by the Human Development Index, the PQLI is notable for Morris's attempt to show a "less fatalistic pessimistic picture" by focusing on three areas where global quality of life was generally improving at the time, while ignoring
gross national product and other possible indicators that were not improving. The
Happy Planet Index, introduced in 2006, is unique among quality of life measures in that, in addition to standard determinants of well-being, it uses each country's
ecological footprint as an indicator. As a result, European and North American nations do not dominate this measure. The 2012 list is instead topped by
Costa Rica,
Vietnam and
Colombia. In 2010,
Gallup researchers trying to find the world's
happiest countries found
Denmark to be at the top of the list. For the period 2014–2016, Norway surpasses Denmark to be at the top of the list. A 2010 study by two
Princeton University professors looked at 1,000 randomly selected U.S. residents over an extended period. It concludes that their
life evaluations – that is, their considered evaluations of their life against a stated scale of one to ten – rise steadily with income. On the other hand, their reported quality of
emotional daily experiences (their reported experiences of
joy,
affection,
stress,
sadness, or
anger) levels off after a certain income level (approximately $75,000 per year in 2010); income above $75,000 does not lead to more experiences of happiness nor to further relief of unhappiness or stress. Below this income level, respondents reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness and stress, implying the pain of life's misfortunes, including
disease,
divorce, and
being alone, is exacerbated by
poverty.
Gross national happiness and other subjective measures of happiness are being used by the governments of
Bhutan and the United Kingdom. The World Happiness report, issued by Columbia University is a meta-analysis of happiness globally and provides an overview of countries and grassroots activists using GNH. The
OECD issued a guide for the use of subjective well-being metrics in 2013. In the U.S., cities and communities are using a GNH metric at a grassroots level. The
Social Progress Index measures the extent to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens. Fifty-two indicators in the areas of basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity show the relative performance of nations. The index uses outcome measures when there is sufficient data available or the closest possible proxies. Day-Reconstruction Method was another way of measuring happiness, in which researchers asked their subjects to recall various things they did on the previous day and describe their mood during each activity. Being simple and approachable, this method required memory and the experiments have confirmed that the answers that people give are similar to those who repeatedly recalled each subject. The method eventually declined as it called for more effort and thoughtful responses, which often included interpretations and outcomes that do not occur to people who are asked to record every action in their daily lives. The Digital Quality of Life Index - a yearly study on digital well-being across 121 countries created by
Surfshark. It indexes each country according to five pillars that impact a population's digital quality of life: internet affordability, internet quality, electronic infrastructure, electronic security, and electronic government.
Livability awarded
Vienna the
most livable city in 2019
Global Liveability Ranking. The term
quality of life is also used by politicians and economists to measure the livability of a given city or nation. Two widely known measures of livability are the
Economist Intelligence Unit's
Where-to-be-born Index and
Mercer's Quality of Living Reports. These two measures calculate the livability of countries and cities around the world, respectively, through a combination of
subjective life-satisfaction surveys and objective determinants of quality of life such as divorce rates, safety, and infrastructure. Such measures relate more broadly to the population of a city, state, or country, not to individual quality of life. Livability has a long history and tradition in
urban design, and neighborhoods design standards such as
LEED-ND are often used in an attempt to influence livability.
Crimes Some crimes against property (e.g.,
graffiti and
vandalism) and some "
victimless crimes" have been referred to as "quality-of-life crimes". American
sociologist James Q. Wilson encapsulated this argument as the
broken windows theory, which asserts that relatively minor problems left unattended (such as litter,
graffiti, or public urination by
homeless individuals) send a
subliminal message that disorder, in general, is being tolerated, and as a result, more serious crimes will end up being committed (the analogy being that a broken window left broken shows an image of general dilapidation). Wilson's theories have been used to justify the implementation of
zero tolerance policies by many prominent American
mayors, most notably
Oscar Goodman in
Las Vegas,
Richard Riordan in
Los Angeles,
Rudolph Giuliani in
New York City and
Gavin Newsom in
San Francisco. Such policies refuse to tolerate even minor crimes; proponents argue that this will improve the quality of life of local residents. However, critics of zero tolerance policies believe that such policies neglect investigation on a case-by-case basis and may lead to unreasonably harsh penalties for crimes. ==In healthcare==