Life situation & quality of life
Wellbeing and prosperity determine someone's life situation. Economic and social aspects are important here. Life situation says something about objective quality of life, while well-being is about how people experience it.
The Life Situation Index
SCP has used the Life Situation Index to track individual wellbeing
and prosperity in the Netherlands since 1974. SCP also examines the wellbeing
and prosperity of specific groups, such as the elderly, city-dwellers,
ethnic minorities or women; is the position of these groups improving or are
they falling behind?
One figure
The Life Situation Index brings together findings in several social
domains within a single figure: health, housing situation, diversity of
leisure activities, social participation, ownership of consumer durables,
mobility, participation in sport and holidays. This index figure assigns a
value to someone's life situation as a whole. If trends in different domains
diverted, this index figure offers an insight into what is happening. For
example, suppose that people take part in more sport, but that their housing
situation deteriorates; does their life situation then improve or
deteriorate?
Quality of life
Several local authorities in the Netherlands use the SCP Life
Situation Index. Other studies complement the Index, such as the Quality of
Life programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
Statistics Netherlands (CBS)
publishes regularly on various aspects of life situation.
Research at SCP
In The Social
State of the Netherlands, which is published every two years, SCP
describes and analyses the life situation of the Dutch population as a whole
as well as of individual groups. The Life
Situation Index is a research theme for the Data Services and IT
department (I&A), which calculates the Index on the basis of surveys. The
Care
research group focusses on quality of life, healthy living and use of care
of/the Dutch population. In addition, it carries out research on the
living conditions and quality of life of older people and people with a
disability or chronic disease.
More information
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Measuring the Progress of Societies is an OECD project in which international and regional partners jointly encourage the development and use of indicators to serve as a basis for decision-making. See also WikiProgress.
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The International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS) is an international organisation which aims to promote and encourage research into quality of life.
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The World Database of Happiness contains information and data on happiness and satisfaction.
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