The quality of life in the Caribbean: A political interpretation

A study of 23 Caribbean polities attempted to relate two types of measures of economic and political development to measures of the quality of life. On the one hand are two closely related concepts, the level of economic development and the political status of the polity (colony, internal self-government, or autonomy). On the other hand are two measures of the type of government and economic structure: plantation agriculture and repressive government. Measures of the quality of life included per capita income, health measures, educational measures, communication and transportation per capita. Plantation structure and political repression were found to be related to most of the measures of the quality of life, but measures of economic development and political status to practically none.