Quality of life research: Material living conditions in the Visegrad group countries

Abstract

The paper researches the quality of life, namely the dimension of material living conditions in the Visegrad Group countries (hereinafter V4 countries) represented by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The main value-added of the paper is a development analysis of the most important indicators of material living conditions recommended by Eurostat and calculations of the integrated indices which enable us to make comparisons among the V4 countries in 2005-2013. According to our results, the Czech Republic achieved the first position among the V4 countries, mainly due to the highest values of income indicator and GDP per capita and the lowest levels of income inequality, relative poverty and proportion of the materially deprived people. Slovakia came second and recorded improvement especially in the income indicator and the proportion of materially deprived people. Hungary yielded worsening of material living conditions mainly in the indicators of self-reported evaluation of poverty, social inclusion and material deprivation. Poland achieved relative improvement almost in all analysed indicators and moved from the last to the third position among the V4 countries.