Rising Economic Prosperity and Social Quality the Case of New Member States of the European Union

This paper considers whether rising economic prosperity in the New Member States of the European Union since joining the EU is also reflected in better a quality of life and what constitutes a better quality of society for the citizens of these countries. The paper contributes to the debate about the relationship between economic conditions and subjective well-being by showing that the factors that contribute to the latter have not only changed with economic growth but that subjective life satisfaction has also improved. Here we consider how this relationship can be explained by using the Social Quality model to measure the quality of society. We look specifically at the New Member States of the European Union (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) using the European Quality of Life Surveys for 2003 and 2007. This covers a period during which the economic conditions of these societies improved and they modernised. The social quality model explains a great deal of the variance in life satisfaction and helps us to show that as well as economic factors, other aspects of the quality of society, such as social integration and empowerment, are also important. We argue that economic and social factors have to be understood as interacting with other aspects of society if we seek to understand the quality of society.     

Distributional Implications of the Economic Development in the Baltics: Reconciling Micro and Macro Perspectives

The aim of this paper was to analyse distributional implications of the economic development reflected at the macro level in the Baltics. We demonstrated how the concepts of income and its measurement at macro and micro levels can be reconciled using data recorded in the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and National Accounts. We found that household incomes in the Baltics diverge and lag behind incomes reflected at the macro level. This was especially true for two income categories: property and mixed incomes. Average gaps in social benefits and taxes were small, and these were medium for wages and salaries. Adjusting incomes in EU-SILC to cover the observed gaps resulted in increase in income inequality indicators for all three countries, especially for Latvia and for the period of resumed economic growth following the latest economic crisis in Lithuania. Hence, divergences between macro and micro level accounts on incomes hide potentially higher levels of income inequality than shown in official distributional statistics.     

Multidimensional Analysis of Regional Inequality: The case of Hungary

Hungary has been in a transition process since the fall of the IronCurtain. This process has resulted in important developments in regionalpolicy. The introduction of a western style policy system seems,however, not to have affected regional inequality to any noticeableextent as measured by income per captia. There are still largedisparities between the richest counties and the remaining counties interms of this indicator. However, single indicator approaches toregional inequality have been criticised. Therefore in this paper weadopt a multidimensional approach to analyse regional inequality. Forthe counties of Hungary the multidimensionality of inequality is takeninto account by using a multiple of social and economic indicators thatare combined into a composite index. Theil's second measure ofmultidimensional inequality and principal component analysis are used toconstruct the composite index. The results thus obtained are used toidentify the least-favoured and the most-favoured regions. We find thatthere are substantial differences between the single indicator approachbased on per capita income and the multidimensional approach. Moreover,we argue that the EU Phare Programmes for Hungary have helped theeconomic development in developed regions situated on the EU border butat the same time have stimulated disparities within Hungary.     

The Prospects of Catching up for New EU Members Lessons for the Accession Countries to the European Union from Previous Enlargements

With EU membership, politicians aswell as citizens in the accession countrieshope to achieve improvements in livingconditions and – at least in the long run –to catch up with the West European societies.Catch-up modernization of the less advancedmember states is also an ``official' goal of EUpolicy. Expert opinions about the prospects forsuccess, however, vary widely. In this paper, ageneral model for how EU policy influencesquality of life in less well-off membercountries is presented. An analysis of formerenlargements – the cohesion countries Ireland,Greece, Portugal, and Spain – reveals that EUintegration obviously facilitates processes ofcatch up but does not guarantee them. This isdemonstrated by using indicators coveringdifferent aspects of quality of life, percapita income (material living conditions),social protection ratios (general quality ofsociety), and life satisfaction (subjectivewell-being). Bearing in mind their particulareconomic and social conditions and theirheterogeneity, the prospects of the futuremember states are discussed.     

Regional Performance Trends in Providing Employment for Persons with Disabilities: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this work is to analyse the situation of persons with disabilities in the Italian labour market, with a view to providing guidelines to promote their inclusion both in the labour market and in society. For this purpose, we propose a two-step analysis focusing on Italian regions for the period 2006–2009. In the first phase, we use the Data Envelopment Analysis method to evaluate regional efficiency in providing employment for persons with disabilities. Cluster analysis is then applied to regional efficiency scores and economic policy variables in order to identify “policy clusters of regions”. Our results show that it is necessary both to focus on the residual work ability of persons with disabilities and to develop a social integration culture on the demand side of the labour market. Moreover, a structural reform of disability benefit systems is required in order to promote a culture of social inclusion.     

中国城市人口生活质量区域性量化研究

改革开放30年来,中国城市人口生活质量得到大幅度提高,但是,国内不同区域人口生活质量存在较大的差异。根据统计分析中因子分析和聚类分析的方法,构建评价生活质量的指标体系,运用社会统计学软件SPSS15.0对2005年中国31个地区16项反映城市人口生活质量的截面数据指标进行量化分析。同时,根据计算结果对中国东中西和东北地区4个区域31个地区城市人口生活质量水平进行等级划分和综合评价。     

基于因子分析法的我国区域人类发展实证研究

本文介绍并引进了以因子分析法为基础构建的人类发展指数(HDI)。通过指标体系的构建、评估方法的选择及与联合国开发计划署制订的人类发展指数比较发现,基于因子分析法的人类发展指数较之传统的方法更适合测算与度量我国区域人类发展水平。     

浙江城市居民生活质量的区域差异：一项基于客观指标的聚类分析

生活质量是城市价值的核心,是一个多层面的复合概念。本文在宏观层次上综合出一套以客观指标构成的生活质量综合评价指标体系。从经济生活、社会保障、教育文化、生命健康、生活环境和交通通讯六个层面来衡量浙江省11个城市的居民生活质量状况．并运用聚类分析、方差分析等技术对各个城市生活质量的区域差异进行了比较研究．最后对如何提高城市居民的生活质量提出了一些建议。     

欧盟的老龄人口养护刍议

由于社会经济发展水平的差异,欧盟存在北欧模式、大陆欧洲模式、地中海模式和东欧模式等多种老龄人口养护模式。因为发放老年人口家庭养护补贴资金的方式不同,欧盟形成了不同的家庭养护劳动市场;欧盟各成员国的正规护理劳动力在技能、职业培训和职业资质等方面也存在着诸多差异。与此同时,欧盟的老龄人口养护出现了老龄人口养护从机构护理向家庭护理转移,老龄人口居家养护市场化和老年人口养护行业社会地位与收入均相对低下等态势。本文旨在论述、评估了这些模式的异同及演变趋势,以期为中国老龄人口的养护提供借鉴。     

What is Happening with Quality of Life Among the Oldest People in Southern European Countries? An Empirical Approach Based on the SHARE Data

Population aging in developed countries has created new challenges to improve the well-being of individuals at different age cohorts. This issue is especially significant for Southern European countries, were aging societies have worse health and less socio-economic resources. The aim of this study is to contribute to this body of literature and to estimate the effect of aging on quality of life of oldest people. This paper uses the latest available data (6th wave) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Specifically, robust ordinary least squares and multilevel regressions are employed to analyse the effects of socioeconomic, health, and community factors on quality of life among the oldest population for Southern European countries. Our findings confirm the significance of several factors on life satisfaction among the oldest population in this group of countries. Moreover, we show that the determinants which are correlated with quality of life include predisposing, health, geographic area and social isolation factors.     

Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions

This paper investigates the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union (EU) citizens. European subnational units (regions) are defined according to the first-level EU nomenclature of territorial units. We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. Main findings are that personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain, confirming that regional dimension is relevant for life satisfaction.     

Proposal for a Dynamic Composite Indicator: Application in a Comparative Analysis of Trends in the EU Member States Towards the Europe 2020 Strategy

This paper contributes, with a dynamic approach, to the research on the creation of comparable composite indicators by presenting a proposal for an exploratory factor analysis protocol to enable a comparative trend analysis. The originality of the study lies in the three dimensions of information for analysis: observations, variables and units of time. The proposal involves various stages of analysis with the ultimate, albeit not exclusive, aim of obtaining what is known as a Global Dynamic Indicator. The analysis process begins by structuring the data into a three-dimensional global matrix, thereby conditioning, while also, and primarily, enriching the later stages. A combination of multiple factor analysis and a clustering technique is the selected approach for successfully meeting the challenges involved. The appropriateness and versatility of the proposal are validated through the analysis of the trends of the EU member states towards the targets set by the 2020 Strategy. The study period runs from 2009 to 2018. The empirical work enables the visualisation and quantification of trend differences and similarities across member states collectively and individually, and across all the variables and years selected for analysis. The relevant findings will be quantified by means of a synthetic indicator for each unit of time and a global indicator for the period as a whole. Some of the conclusions reached by this paper are consistent with those already published by various authors.

     

A DEA Approach to Measure the Quality-of-Life in the Municipalities of the Canary Islands

The notion of the quality of life has always intrigued economists, sociologists and other researchers in the area of social science. Since the genesis of the definition of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a truthful measure of well-being and economic development, other sophisticated methodologies have been proposed in the literature to measure the quality-of-life (QOL) that extend in a multidimensional way this complex concept. Measuring QOL in municipalities consists in finding a set of comparable attributes that can be weighted by some metric in order to construct a synthetic index. Thus, the narrow vision obtained by a single measure as the GDP, in which differences in the QOL cannot be fully analyzed, is overcome. Based upon a refinement of data envelopment analysis (DEA)—the cross-efficiency method, the current paper develops a synthetic QOL index that is based in 19 partial indicators which present the tradeoffs of different dimension for the 87 municipalities of the Canary Islands in Spain. Marginal rates of substitution are calculated to evaluate the tradeoffs on QOL dimensions. A method is also proposed to determine the scores chart of each municipality which can be used as a tool to policy makers in order to establish a program of improving the ranking position of the municipality identifying the critical QOL factors.     

Good Job,Good Life? Working Conditions and Quality of Life in Europe

Cross-national comparisons generally show large differences in life satisfaction of individuals within and between European countries. This paper addresses the question of whether and how job quality and working conditions contribute to the quality of life of employed populations in nine strategically selected EU countries: Finland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Using data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2003, we examine relationships between working conditions and satisfaction with life, as well as whether spillover or segmentation mechanisms better explain the link between work domain and overall life satisfaction. Results show that the level of life satisfaction varies significantly across countries, with higher quality of life in more affluent societies. However, the impact of working conditions on life satisfaction is stronger in Southern and Eastern European countries. Our study suggests that the issue of security, such as security of employment and pay which provides economic security, is the key element that in a straightforward manner affects people’s quality of life. Other working conditions, such as autonomy at work, good career prospects and an interesting job seem to translate into high job satisfaction, which in turn increases life satisfaction indirectly. In general, bad-quality jobs tend to be more ‘effective’ in worsening workers’ perception of their life conditions than good jobs are in improving their quality of life. We discuss the differences in job-related determinants of life satisfaction between the countries and consider theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Differences in the Environmental,Social and Economic Development of Polish–Lithuanian Trans-Border Regions

Regional development is a complex process that can be analysed in various contexts, including environmental, social and economic factors. Variations in the levels of development are naturally observed across countries and regions, but they play a special role in trans-border regions. The aim of this study is to investigate differences in the level of development of two Polish voivodships (Warmia and Mazury, and Podlasie) and two Lithuanian counties (Marijampol? and Alytus) which are trans-border regions (NUTS 4 level). The study was conducted by analysing three subordinate criteria, namely environmental, social and economic factors, as well as the overall development of the evaluated regions with the use of the analytical hierarchy process and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution methods. The evaluated trans-border regions are characterised by a predominance of rural areas and considerable variations in development. The entire area is characterised by high natural value. This is an important observation because the condition of the natural environment is a key determinant of well-being, and it directly influences the quality of life. The analysis revealed considerable demographic problems, mainly in Lithuanian regions, resulting from low population growth and a negative net migration rate which influence population structure. Disproportions in regional development call for regional policies that are adapted to local needs and resources.

     

Ethnicity,Modern Prejudice and the Quality of Life

The aim of this investigation was to measure levels of ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice, and the impact of such diversity, cohesion and prejudice on the quality of life. Using a sample of 743 residents of Prince George, British Columbia, we identified diverse ethnic or cultural groups, and created several indexes of heterogeneous social networks and a measure of modern prejudice. Dividing the total sample into three roughly distinct groups containing, respectively, respondents self-reporting an ethnic or cultural background that was aboriginal, non-aboriginal visible minority or anything else, we discovered that all significant comparisons indicated that people with aboriginal backgrounds reported a generally lower quality of life than those in the other two groups. The quality of life scores of the other two groups were practically indistinguishable. Given the demographic structure of our sample, the revealed differences could not be attributed to differences in socio-economic classes. Members of the largest group of respondents tended to be most prejudiced and optimistic, people with aboriginal backgrounds tended to be least prejudiced and optimistic and people with visible minority backgrounds tended to be between the other two groups. Regressions revealed that a variety of ethnic/culture-related phenomena could only explain 8%, 9% and 10%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. When domain satisfaction scores were added to the set of predictors, we were able to explain 48%, 69% and 54%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. In the presence of the domain satisfaction scores, the scores on the ethnic/cultural related phenomena added only one percentage point of explanatory power for happiness and life satisfaction, and three percentage points for satisfaction with the overall quality of life. All things considered, then, it is fair to say that this project showed that ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice had relatively very little impact on the quality of life of our sample of respondents.     

A multiattribute measure of human development

A measure of human development, which is not affected by some relevant drawbacks of the commonly utilized measures, is constructed. It is a function of several attributes associated with various factors — economic, social, environmental — and also includes non-homogeneous attributes. It is non-linear in its variables, so that it includes possible interactions among the attributes. Furthermore, it takes into account public opinion about human development through a well-defined procedure of assessment elicitation. The formulation of the human development function constituting the measure is described when considering just one attribute and then several attributes, and the difference between independence and dependence in assessment is shown. Such a procedure is applied to the measurement of human development in 9 countries of the EU, by using thirteen attributes related to the economic, social and environmental fields as well as to the quality of life.     

Measuring rural development in Nigeria: The place of social indicators

The use of economic growth indicators for the purpose of measuring rural development has for a long time been in practice in Nigeria and in many other developing nations. The inadequacy of this measure in depicting development in the area of societal well-being has suggested that social indicators could be a more meaningful tool to monitor and evaluate the level and conditions of rural development. This paper highlights the information needs for, and problems of incorporating social indicators in the measurement of rural development in Nigeria. It is recognized that for social indicators to be a useful tool in a place such as rural Nigeria, they must reflect the sociocultural peculiarities and the life style of the country's rural population. The paper finally suggests an improvement of the quality of social statistics in rural Nigeria to enhance their functional values to planners and policy makers.     

The Importance of the Geographic Level of Analysis in the Assessment of the Quality of Life: The Case of Spain

There is a growing literature on the assessment of quality of life conditions in geographically and/or politically divided regions. Sometimes these territories are countries within a specified supranational structure, such as the European Union, for instance, and sometimes they are regions within countries. There is also some research that focuses on the municipal level of analysis, measuring the quality of life in cities. In the end what the researcher obtains is, at best, an average of the living conditions in the specified territory. However, if results are intended to have policy implications, attention should be paid to the variance in living conditions within regions. In this paper we attempt to quantify the relative importance of three different geographic levels of analysis in assessing the quality of life of the Spanish population. The geo-political division in Spain consists firstly of regions called Comunidades Autónomas, which are then divided into provinces which in turn are divided into municipalities. We are interested in evaluating the extent to which the quality of life conditions of an average person living in a given municipality are explained by the province and region in which the municipality is located. To do so, we first construct a composite indicator of quality of life (QoL) for the 643 largest municipalities of Spain using 19 variables which are weighted using Value Efficiency Analysis (VEA). VEA is a refinement of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) that imposes some consistency on the weights of the indicators used to construct the aggregate index. The indicators cover aspects related to consumption, social services, housing, transport, environment, labour market, health, culture and leisure, education and security. We then make a variance decomposition of the VEA scores to assess the importance of the three levels of geo-political administration. The results show that the municipal level is the most important of these, accounting for 52% of the variance in QoL. Regions explain 38% while provinces only account for a moderate 10%. Therefore, political action at the regional and municipal level would seem to have a larger impact on QoL indicators.     

Pairwise Comparisons of Social Development of Selected Countries: 1960–1994: An application of D2-statistics

The paradigm of development has shifted from gross national product to human well-being: from economic growth to social development. It has been broadly accepted that economic growth doesnot automatically translate into a better quality of life. Consequently, the main objective of the most of the countries is to achieve better standard of living for their people. In this context it is of interest to have a look at the pairwise convergence or divergence of countries in social development over a period of time. This study uses D²-statistics to obtain a pairwise distance matrix for the sample countries for each point of time 1960 and 1994. The paper presents a gap matrix portraying the change in the distances between each pair of country over the period. This also finds distance of a country from all other countries. All the analysis has been offered for the entire sample as well as three income groups low, middle and high.