A Worldwide Measure of Societal Quality of Life

Abstract

This paper proposes a comprehensive new measure of societal quality of life (QOL) at the national level. Focusing on livability, the environmental, external factors that constitute a society’s QOL this measure derives from a novel and multifaceted analysis of subjective wellbeing data. In determining what people actually value, the measure allows for a comprehensive cross-country comparison of QOL that complements normative objective-list or capabilities approaches. The analysis supports the five broad categories of Community and Relationships, Freedom and Opportunity, Health and Environment, Living Standard, and Peace and Security as antecedents to QOL. Current measures overlook or deemphasize aspects of these elements. This paper explains the methodology used to construct the index and, provides complete country rankings of QOL for 143 countries since 2000.