Introduction

I.1 On the Meaning of the Concept “Quality of Life”

Today, the concept of “quality of life” is widely used in economics, sociology, medicine, politics and many other social sciences. The problem of assessing the quality of life (QOL) arises as we are trying to find a solution to various socio-economic objectives, such as a comparison of individual territories and social groups in terms of socio-economic development as well as establishing a criterion for the effectiveness of social and economic policies in certain area. It is obvious that QOL belongs to both categories: synthetic (that is, combines the various aspects of living conditions and perceptions of these conditions by the individual), and latent (that is, not directly measurable). It is this synthetic latent category that is the subject of this book. Mentioning of econometric approach in the book’s name means that this approach is supposed to use a specific model for the problem of measurement of QOL based on the specific statistical macro- or micro data. The model is to be built on the basis of certain theoretical conceptual principles (we’ll talk about it later, see Chapter 1).

In this context, it seems daunting to me to start my conversation with the readers with the confession that there are numerous theoretical concepts of QOL (of individual and certain conglomerates of the population) highlighting the various aspects of life (happiness, health, the ability to lead a worthy life, etc.), but there is no single universal definition of synthetic latent category.

This makes sense because, speaking of QOL, one should take into account the wide range of spheres of human life and the environments in which they take place, as well as the difference (in time and space) of mental attitudes of people in the interpretation of this concept. Therefore, one’s view of the question “what is good and what is bad”, of course, depends on the time and the place, the specificity of the national mentality and accepted system of values and many other factors. After all, the importance of certain aspects of the concept of private “QOL” can vary with time and space depending on the specific global historical conditions of the society. Indeed, the main properties of the QOL are formed and manifested in its ability to adapt to the world, and in its interaction with the “external objects” (production, social institutions, the natural environment, etc.) and with each other. The set of objects through which QOL interacts with the population historically revolves because the needs of the population and the productive forces constantly develop, changing man’s place in nature and society itself.

The anthropogenic factor in the environment and, in particular, the ability of the population to bring nature to the irreversible destruction or on the contrary prevent it serves as an example of the complexity of human interaction with the environment and the emergence of new components in the category of “QOL” today. It is unlikely that this component played any significant role in the spectrum of properties of the concept of “QOL” 60 years ago. However, at any given moment in history, this set of “external objects”, in interaction with which the basic properties of the QOL are formed and manifested, infinitely varies. Therefore, the number and composition of the properties that are combined (synthesized) in the integral characteristics of “QOL” also depend on subjective factors, including the level of our knowledge.

I’d like to stress that the problem of establishing and especially measuring such a general category without additional explanations seems overly ambitious, a sort of a pretentious claim to the “discovery of the philosopher’s stone”. After all, knowing what “QOL” is, and placing a formalized methodology to measure it, built on the basis of relevant statistical indicators and more specific properties of this category, we are able to determine the strategic objectives in the development of human society. We are able to compare certain indicators of different cells of the society in time and space, and finally, we can design target criteria of social welfare, conditional optimization of which (in different kinds of climatic, political and resource constraints) will allow us to determine the optimal path of socio-economic, ecological and demographic development.

In this context, the position of those scholars who reject in principle the possibility and feasibility of constructing any consolidated, integrated gages of synthetic latent categories of QOL seems to be quite reasonable and convincing. That’s exactly the position that a well-known Russian–American researcher J. Birman takes [Бирман И., I would call it a comfortable position of irony and scepticism towards the possibility of measuring the latent synthetic categories of QOL of the population. In his work he makes an interesting attempt to analyse a wide range of aspects of QOL by presenting random examples of studies of various aspects of life in Russia and the USA. In my opinion it’s convenient because it is difficult to dispute, if the ambitions of such an approach imply a universal character and are not the subject to well-defined finite applied research with objectives (see below in this Introduction, as well as in Paragraph 3.1).

Nevertheless, people cannot (and will not) abandon solving problems related to the interpretation, comparison (spatial and temporal), assessment and measurement of QOL. I think in this context it is appropriate to quote here one of the main points of the report prepared by the Commission on Accessing Economic Performance and Social Progress, led by Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen [Report, 2010–2011]: “And though to assess the QOL requires a number of different indicators, there is an urgent need to establish a single consolidated assessment. Depending on the nature of the issues and the approach we can develop a range of consolidated measurements of quality of life” (Highlighted by me, S. A). In the Commission’s Report one of the official recommendations to the National Statistical Services of different countries was devoted to the same idea: “Recommendation 9: Statistical Offices should provide the information necessary for aggregation on different parameters of QOL, which in turn would allow to develop various indices”.

So, it seems to me that the selection of existing basic theoretical concepts of QOL and the main methodological approaches to measuring and modelling QOL as well as tracking emerging trends in the major concepts of the development of human society in post-industrial world, and accordingly which factors affect the QOL of individual members of the society or certain conglomerates (social groups, regions, countries) the most, is a foreseeable task.

Thus, in this book the category of QOL is understood in a synthetic and complex sense, far beyond those of more familiar and more particular (but also synthetic latent) concepts such as “standard of living”, “environmental quality”, “the level of social security”, “human development index”, “health index” or “quality of the population”. By definition, such a general category, QOL, must integrate smaller more specific aspects of social life, while taking into account the prevailing social attitudes to the system of values and the specificity of the historical moment.

However, each of the synthetic categories that we want to measure in the analysis of QOL can ultimately be characterized by some set of statistical indicators x(1), x(2), …, x(p) (we’ll call these indicators the partial criteria of analysed synthetic category). Number p of partial criteria can be quite large, but in accordance with the Management Theory’s known “threshold of complexity” definition when evaluating an event or phenomenon a person can only take into account no more than 6–8 parameters characterizing this phenomenon. Hence the need arises for a transition from a plurality of individual criteria x(1), x(2), …, x(p) to a relatively small number of integrated indicators (and under certain conditions – to a single integral indicator), each of which is constructed in the form of a certain function (convolution) fx(1), x(2), …, x(p) of individual criteria. This of course requires that the transition from the values of the indicators x(1), x(2), …, x(p) to their convolution (convolutions) would minimize the loss of the information contained in the original set of particular criteria.

We’d like to emphasize that while setting up a goal of analysing and measuring the various categories of synthetic QOL (different degrees of generality), we should be aware that the methodology of measurement and interpretation of integrated indicators of quality of life (II QOL) should be specified for particular types of tasks and their applications. We’ll discuss some types of such problems in the Introduction and in Point 1.2.4.

I.2 Why do we need to and why we can Measure the Quality of Life

The fact that one of the most important priorities is the problem of providing a decent QOL to the population is declared in the Constitutions of most countries. For example, Article 7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states: “Russia is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating the conditions for a dignified life and free development of the individual”. Therefore the integral indicator of QOL of the population can be used, on one hand, as the criteria for the effectiveness of the policy of the government, and, on the other hand, as instruments for making management decisions when choosing the priorities for the government agencies. World practice has identified a number of approaches to assessing the QOL, each of which solves its own tasks (see Paragraph 1.3). These tasks can be divided provisionally into two groups. The first group is determined by the necessity of compiling the inter-territorial ratings. In this case, we use the integrated indicative criteria of QOL of the population that may not have a clear interpretation, but conclusively assess the dynamics of the QOL of the population and compare the values of the indicators of QOL in certain area with other territories. The second group of tasks aimed at management decisions, and therefore all the indicators, should be interpreted unambiguously. In this case, we use the system of statistical indicators of socio-economic development of the territory (the so-called partial criteria), on the basis of which the above-mentioned integral indicative criteria are constructed.

It can be concluded that the II QOL is responsible, on one hand, for monitoring the QOL of the analysed area (country, region, municipality) by comparing it with those of other areas; based on them, on the other hand, we can get recommendations for the adoption of certain management decisions by the administration of the territory.

The main advantages of the model II QOL are as follows:

Thus, designed by using a specific technique II QOL is intended in particular for use as performance indicators in the selection of priorities of socio-economic policy of territorial governments.

Definition of the problem areas of social life of the population of certain territory should be based on analysis, on one hand, of the dynamics of key socio-economic indicators and, on the other hand, of the place of the area in comparison to other analysed territories. Natural to assume that the negative dynamics of the indicator in relationship to its past values and the simultaneous deterioration of some of the territory’s specific index in comparison to the same index of other areas indicates the presence of a so-called problem areas (bottlenecks) in the socio-economic governance.

In other words, the deterioration of the territory in terms of their relative prior achievements and at the same time in relation to other areas means a high grade of priority of the assessed indicator in terms of the necessity and possibility of changing it. Conversely, the sustainable improvement of the index values of the territory relative to past values of the regions, including its own, in general, points to the need of maintaining the current trend.

Now, as to why we can measure the quality of life of an individual or entire conglomerate population (population, region, municipality, certain social stratum). Once we define the analysed synthetic category (“quality of life” in the most general sense, or “social tensions”, “health index”, “level of material well-being”, etc.) and deliver the ultimate goal of applied research (construction of ratings in the context of inter-territorial comparisons; identifying the problem areas in socio-economic development of the territory that have the most important impact on the QOL; the study of the mentality of the population of the territory on the basis of special questionnaire surveys, etc.), the experts can agree on a set of statistical indicators that adequately characterize the analysed synthetic category. Integral indicator (or integral indicators) is the measurement (measurements) of the analysed synthetic category. It is constructed in the form of a convolution of these indicators (mostly linear). The technique of constructing a similar convolution is described in Paragraph 1.3 (global experience) and Chapter 2 (our proposals and our experience).

I.3 Two Methological Approaches to Evaluation and Measurement of Quality of Life (Micro- and Macro-Analysis)

Getting to the assessment and measurement of the various categories of synthetic QOL, the investigator should determine the choice of the basic provisions of the QOL concept and the corresponding mathematical tools (on the basic theoretical concepts of QOL, see Chapter 1). Methodology for measuring QOL and the construction of various kinds of integrated indicators of quality of life (QOL II) depends on within what type of paradigm the reasoning and analysis are carried out. Accordingly, we distinguish two approaches.

Objectivist (or structural-functionalist) approach is based on the structuralfunctionalist type of paradigm prescribing a leading role in the social life of the community to the structures of different levels of generality that in accordance with this type of paradigm define the place and the “quality” of the individual elements of these structures – individuals and social groups. In this approach, the interest of researchers is focused on the analysis and measurement of statistical data and II QOL that characterize the whole conglomerate of individuals (social groups, the population of a specific region of the country as a whole).

Information support of the research conducted within the objectivist approach consists of the values of statistical indicators and partially expertly evaluated QOL II, describing in general the QOL of analysed conglomerate of individuals (social group, the population of the region, the country) for a number of years. A specific list of these indices and the II QOL is determined in accordance with the theoretical provision of the selected concept of QOL.

Subjectivist (or interactionist) approach is based on the type of interactionist paradigm that prescribes a leading role in the society to the so-called actors (which refers, in particular, to the individual) and to the ability to achieve cooperation in their behaviour. In this formulation, the system of practical possibilities and needs of the individual becomes the direct object of the analysis. As a rule, in this case, QOL is a result of subjective assessments by individuals themselves of different aspects of their life and state of mind. Informational support of research conducted within subjectivist approach requires more time and cost than in the case of objectivist one. It is associated with formulation, distribution, filling and handling of a sufficient number of special profiles (the content and structure of those profiles is again set in accordance with the provisions of the selected theoretical concept of QOL).

While paying the tribute to the importance and effectiveness of both of these approaches, recognizing the desirability of their simultaneous use for the purpose of mutual complement, we would like to point out that in this book we will talk mainly about the objectivist approach and examples of its use in empirical research.

I.4 Conclusions

1. There is no single, universal definition or a single universal method of measuring the latent synthetic category of “quality of life”. It just doesn’t exist. The main properties of the QOL of an individual or a certain part of the population are formed and manifested in its ability to adapt to the world, in its interaction with the “external objects” – the production, social institutions, the natural environment, etc., and each other. The set of objects through which the population interacts with constantly changes in space and time. These changes are subject to the productive forces and the population’s needs, man’s place in nature and the society itself.

2. When we set a goal of analysis and measurement of the various categories of synthetic QOL (different degrees of generality), we should be aware that the methodology for the measurement and interpretation of integrated indicators of QOL should be specified for certain types of problems and their applications. In other words, the researcher must clearly define the following: the QOL of what type of conglomerates of population he would be analysing (individual people; certain social layer; population of certain areas – countries, regions, municipalities, etc.). What are the common features of the synthetic QOL categories that the researcher is interested in (material well-being, human development, environmental quality, social tension, etc., or is it QOL in the most general sense)? What is the purpose of measuring and analysing the synthetic category of QOL (inter-territorial ratings, evaluation of the effectiveness of social and economic policy, a study of the features of the mentality of certain conglomerate of the population, etc.)?

3. There are two main methodological approaches to assessing and measuring latent synthetic categories of QOL:

4. After the specification of the problem of analysis and measurement of the synthetic category of QOL, the general methodological scheme of constructing the corresponding integral indicator (the measurement of this synthetic category) brings us to the following function (convolution):

of the particular criteria x(1), x(2), …, x(p) This function minimizes the loss of information about the analysed synthetic category that could occur during the transition from the information that is contained in indicators x(1), x(2), …, x(p) to the information delivered by the only indicator (integral indicator) y. In this problem, the particular criteria x(1), x(2), …, x(p) are actually the statistical indicators that adequately characterize the viewed conglomerates of the population based on analysed synthetic categories (with the macro-approach) or the results of a questionnaire survey of the population on various items of the questionnaire (with the micro-approach).

There may be situations when a satisfactory solution to this problem with a single integrated indicator does not exist. Then we have to come up with the minimum number k of integral indicators (where k is a “lot less” than p, which is usually denoted by ”k « p”), with which it is possible to achieve a satisfactory solution to this problem (in some sense) and construction of k integral indicators

These functions in total meet the above-mentioned property of minimal loss of information at the transition from (x(1), x(2), …, x(p) to y(1), …, y(k))