Table Of ContentASSESSING QUALITY OF LIFE AND LIVING CONDITIONS
TO GUIDE NATIONAL POLICY
Social Indicators Research Series
Volume 11
General Editor:
ALEX C. MICHALOS
University of Northern British Columbia,
Prince George, Canada
Editors:
ED DIENER
University of Illinois, Champaign, U.S.A.
WOLFGANG GLATZER
J. W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
TORBJORN MOUM
University of Oslo, Norway
JOACHIM VOGEL
Central Bureau of Statistics, Stockholm, Sweden
RUUT VEENHOVEN
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
This new series aims to provide a public forum for single treat-
ises and collections of papers on social indicators research that are
too long to be published in our journal Social Indicators Research.
Like the journal, the book series deals with statistical assessments
of the quality of life from a broad perspective. It welcomes the
research on a wide variety of substantive areas, including health,
crime, housing, education, family life, leisure activities, transporta-
tion, mobility, economics, work, religion and environmental issues.
These areas of research will focus on the impact of key issues such
as health on the overall quality of life and vice versa. An interna-
tional review board, consisting of Ruut Veenhoven, Joachim Vogel,
Ed Diener, Torbjorn Moum and Wolfgang Glatzer, will ensure the
high quality of the series as a whole.
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
ASSESSING QUALITY OF LIFE
AND LIVING CONDITIONS TO
GUIDE NATIONAL POLICY
The State of the Art
Edited by
MICHAEL R. HAGERTY
University of California, Davis CA
JOACHIM VOGEL
Statistics Sweden, Welfare Analysis Program, and University of Umeå, Sweden
and
VALERIE MØLLER
Rhodes University, South Africa
Reprinted from Social Indicators Research, Volume 58, Nos. 1–3 (June 2002)
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CONTENTS
Introduction
Michael Hagerty, Joachim Vogel, Valerie Møller 1
PART I. CONCEPTS AND THEORY
Conceptualizing and Measuring Quality of Life for National Policy
Sten Johansson 13
Why Social Policy Needs Subjective Indicators
Ruut Veenhoven 33
Towards a European System of Social Indicators: Theoretical Frame-
work and System Architecture
Heinz-Herbert Noll 47
PART II. CURRENT SOCIAL INDICATOR AND SOCIAL
REPORTING PROGRAMS: NATIONAL AND
COMPARATIVE EXPERIENCE
Strategies and Traditions in Swedish Social Reporting: A 30-Year
Experience
Joachim Vogel 89
Quality of Life and Living Conditions in the Netherlands
Jeroen Boelhouwer 115
“Quality of Life” Research at the Israel Central Bureau of
Statistics: Social Indicators and Social Surveys
Charles S. Kamen 141
Quality of life in a European Perspective: The EUROMODULE as a
New Instrument for Comparative Welfare Research
Jan Delhey, Petra Böhnke, Roland Habich, Wolfgang Zapf 163
The NORBALT Project: Comparative Studies of Living Conditions
in the three Baltic Countries
Aadne Aasland, Guri Tyldum 177
Living Conditions in the Arctic
Thomas Andersen, Birger Poppel 191
Cross-national Comparison of the Quality of Life in Europe: Inven-
tory of Surveys and Methods
Michaela Hudler, Rudolf Richter 217
PART III. APPLYING SOCIAL INDICATORS TO
EFFECT SOCIAL CHANGE
TELESIS: The Uses of Indicators to Set Goals and Develop Programs
to Change Conditions
Abbott L. Ferriss 229
The Role of Quality of Life Surveys in Managing Change in Demo-
cratic Transitions: The South African Case
Valerie Møller, Helga Dickow 267
Monitoring the Impact of Land Reform on Quality of Life: A South
African Case Study
Julian May, Thildé Stevens, Annareth Stols 293
Toward a Social Development Index for Hong Kong: The Process of
Community Engagement
Richard J. Estes 313
International Comparisons of Trends in Economic Well-Being
Lars Osberg, Andrew Sharpe 349
Declining Quality of Life Costs Governments Elections: Review of
13 OECD Countries
Michael R. Hagerty 383
Considering Social Cohesion in Quality of Life Assessments: Concept
and Measurement
Regina Berger-Schmitt 403
Do Income Surveys Overestimate Poverty in Western Europe? Evid-
ence from a Comparison with Institutional Frameworks
Christina Behrendt 429
Index 441
INTRODUCTION
ASSESSING NATIONAL QUALITY OF LIFE AND LIVING
CONDITIONS: THE STATE OF THE ART
In February, 2000, a call for papers went out to address “crossroads”
issues in “Assessing National Quality of Life and Living Condi-
tions”. Many of the preliminary papers were also presented at a
special track at the annual conference of the International Society
for Quality of Life Studies in Girona, Spain, 19–22 July 2000, and
received further discussion by prominent researchers active in social
indicators research. The papers addressed theory, current measure-
ments and social reporting, as well as applied studies in various
directions. Speakers were specially invited to address the current
crossroads of the social indicator movement. Papers then underwent
the review and selection process.
The final contributions published here display an impressive
diversity of social indicator work, from large scale survey and
reporting systems providing systematic information for social plan-
ning, and large comparative projects, to targeted research focused on
strategic issues. This volume presents these contributions along the
three headings concepts and theory, current information systems,
and applying social indicators to effect social change. Altogether
they represent a good survey of current focus and practise.
Social indicators, general social surveys and social reporting
have a history of some 40 years, in the sense of a common move-
ment united around a few simple principles: expanding the focus of
social monitoring beyond traditional economic indicators, looking
at output in terms of individual living conditions, and providing
systematic facts on core issues of political debate and social plan-
ning. This was indeed a new movement; it attracted researchers as
they recognised old dreams of social research; it responded to the
administration’s needs for informed social monitoring, and it gained
support by citizen’s movements waiting for ‘scientific’ support for
Social Indicators Research 58: 1–11, 2002.
© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
2 INTRODUCTION
their cause. In effect, this kind of research interest was brought
forward in all periods of qualitative jumps, such as the New Deal,
the Great Society, or, in Sweden, the People’s Home.
Nevertheless, as with earlier attempts in this direction, the social
indicator movement was not to become an immediate success story.
The first decades showed a rapid diversification of approaches,
as well as considerable informal coordination of methods and
analyses, but only a few institutionalised systems, many discon-
tinued programs, and fragmentation into competing sub schools.
About a decade ago the Journal of Public Policy invited a number of
active researchers to give their assessment on the movement’s recent
1
history. The initial enthusiasm and evolution, followed by decline
and even failure of the movement to establish itself, was a general
theme in these assessments. However, in retrospect, we should note
that the research community went ahead with its institutionalisa-
tion towards a self-recognised movement, including attributes such
as a journal, Social Indicators Research, newsletter, international
working parties, and regular conferences. Public recognition and
political influence, however, was less impressive.
Early Attempts
The institutionalisation of social indicators was slow and eventually
discontinued in many countries. Social reporting tended to stop at
statistical compendia, avoiding the next step towards analysis and
policy evaluation.
It turned out that the strength of the movement in providing
scientific facts to the political arena also mobilised its counter
forces. The major drawback of the first two decades was the
closing of OECD’s social indicator program. OECD had by 1980
recruited a large international network of researchers and national
statisticians, joining OECD in developing its program over several
years. This group developed a comparative model comprehensive
survey, as well as a social indicator list intended to be incorpor-
ated in national regular statistics, to provide systematic indicators
for national as well as comparative use. The OECD program was
terminated 20 years ago, in parallel with the U.S. regression during
the Reagan administration. Denis Johnston and Frank Andrews
underlined that the American demise was ideological, as it was
INTRODUCTION 3
for the OECD Social Indicator Program. Johnston’s reflection on
the poor resources given to social indicator research in those days
deviates much from the European, in particular the Scandinavian
2
experience. This comparison points at the difficulties, and even
failure, to penetrate the administration, social planning, and general
public debate. Institutionalisation of social indicators is still unusual
a decade later.
Economic and Social Accounting
In the initial stage of development in the 1960s, the founders of the
social indicator movement were greatly influenced by the devel-
opment of the System of National Accounts (SNA). The unity,
integration, coverage, routine data collection, and standardised
compilation and publication of economic SNA statistics appeared as
a prototype for the social dimension as well. Similar systems were
discussed under headings such as social accounting and a system
of social and demographic statistics (SSDS), linking elements of
social statistics to produce detailed as well as aggregate statistics
of individual and societal well-being. The successful GDP concept
demanded a social counterpart to monitor the social consequences
of modernisation and economic change. The writers in this latest
assessment of the social indicator movement provided self-critique
on the early optimistic ambitions of the social indicator movement to
produce a ‘social’ counterpart to economic accounting. Most writers
shared this disappointment, but also pointed at the complexity of
social reality, the overly optimistic early belief in a measurable
‘system’.
However, by the early 1990s, most developed countries had
developed information systems to monitor general living conditions
along the lines of the Social Indicator Tradition. In the absence of
a unifying concept (such as money), and already established statis-
tical systems, the answer was a more or less standardised system of
social indicators, general social surveys (data collection systems),
and routine social reporting (descriptive statistics; advanced analysis
of living conditions). These are still the three major pillars of the
social indicator movement, along with a broad spectrum of targeted
research.
4 INTRODUCTION
Diversification
No doubt, the first decades saw expansive conceptual develop-
ment, new methods and analytical perspectives. Today we have an
impressive diversification of concepts, research methods, analyses,
and types of reports; but still of an ad hoc nature, and the general
audience is often unaware of the concepts and reports. Diversifica-
tion is indeed the key word around the turn of the century. It is fair
to speak of sub schools within the movement, the repertoire of data
has expanded much, reporting has been diversified and standardised
towards sector reports and systematic overviews of marginalized
categories.
Actors and Current Crossroads
But, as already mentioned, while most developed countries carried
out data collection and reporting, institutionalisation was slow,
programs were terminated, and social indicators never played a
major role in public debate, as did traditional economic and finan-
cial indicators. Social indicators of everyday living conditions had
less influence in setting the political agenda than economic macro
indicators and indicators of market performance. What should have
been fuel to public debate, politics and social planning, tended to
stay within the research community and within social planning, not
finding its way into basic statistics, public recognition and political
debate.
During the last forty years, the original focus on individual as
well as societal welfare was realised in most developed countries
by researchers who not always define themselves as belonging
to this tradition, but were definitely inspired by the early writ-
ings. Today, we have two mainstream actors. One tradition is
official and semi-official social reporting located at public institu-
tions (national statistical institutes, special research institutes, and
sometimes ministries) with a public mandate and usually regular
long-term public funding. The other stream is the independent
research tradition, with temporary funding, ad hoc and temporary
studies, sometimes less comprehensive in nature, and more focused
on special problems.
The tradition and focus of various actors are reflected in the
current crossroads of the movement. The following list of eleven
