What is Quality of Life? In what differentways can think about it

The discussion and research on the quality of life (QOL) has been continued over twenty years and many excellent minds are involved. Undoubtedly, the research on QOL is crucial not only because it can provide useful information for policymakers and inform future choices that people make but also for enhancing QOL has been an implicit goal for individual, communities and world. However, the accurate assessment of QOL is problematic and relatively difficult as QOL is the product of social construction and almost affected by all the factors that exist in society. This leads to a result that it is difficult to give QOL a so-called standard definition. Moreover, its definition varies according to its measurement method and each method provides a different angle to think QOL. This essay through the evaluation of different measurement methods of QOL argues that the existing three main measurement methods reveal a part of QOL respectively and to obtain a more complete, accurate and meaningful QOL picture, thereby combining various measurement methods is necessary. First, the three measurement methods and their strengths & weaknesses will be discussed respectively. Then the combination of the three ways to give a more accurate QOL picture will be demonstrated and based on that a possible definition of QOL will be given.

First, starts with the three measurement methods. Generally, the three major categories of methods used to measure QOL, namely economic indicators, social indicators and subject well-being (SWB). The economic indicators as the most traditional method will be discussed first. Specifically, economic indicators including GDP, income growth and inequity, Gini coefficient and so forth which all play a fundamental role in measuring QOL. QOL from the perspective of the measurement of economic indicators, means more positive figures appearing in the indicators. Furthermore, these economic indicators can also relatively well measure QOL. According to Diener and Diener (1995), wealth correlated tremendously with 26 of the 32 indices, showing a higher QOL in wealthier nations. At country level within the EU, life satisfaction linearly correlates with GDP per capita (Eurofound 2017). This is not difficult to understand because higher GDP and income allow people to have better living conditions and wider choices. Therefore, its advantages are the direct ranking and data can be provided that policymakers can generally interpret the quality of life in a certain region. However, the limitations still remain. One of the limitations is that economic growth will only have a positive impact on lower income levels, in terms of rich countries, the connection between economic growth and QOL can hardly be seen. For instance, in the countries with the highest incomes in Europe, life satisfaction does not increase with the growth of GDP which is called the Easterlin Paradox. (Eurofound 2017). Another limitation is the economic indicators only reflect very narrow focus and do not cover important influence on QOL, such as human rights and the treatment of environment (Diener 1995). Therefore, additional indices of quality of life have been created to cover the shortage.

The measurement method that includes various life domains such as above-mentioned human rights and environmental issues is social indicator which means societal measures that mirror induvial’ s objective circumstances in a given unit (Diner and Suh 1997). Similarly, thinking about QOL from the perspective of social indicators means to present a more positive number in its indicators. Additionally, one of its advantages, as mentioned above, is that it can reflect some essential aspects that are not sufficiently reflects in economic indicators. Crime rate can be given as an example because economic growth does not mean the absence of crime. Also,  according to Moller’s research, as people’s fear of crime have a negative influence on life satisfaction,  people may not regard high crime rate and high economic growth life as a good quality life (2005).  The social indicators based on objective, quantitative statistics rather than individual’s perception is its another advantage. Also, the quantitative data is highly convenient to make comparisons of social indicators across regions. However, under certain circumstances, the data presented by social indicators may not be accurately compared and ranked without considering subjective perspective. For instance, climate factors are often considered when assessing QOL in American cities and places with extremely cold or hot weather are not among the best QOL list. Nevertheless, personal preferences exist and for people who think living in an extremely cold or hot place can fit their definition of good quality life the pure quantitative method is not enough (Becker, 1993 as cited by Diener and Suh 1997). In addition, because it is presented as a quantitative study in the form of data, the researchers have to interpret numbers and during this process, it may difficult to guarantee unbiased.

The last of the three main measurement methods, subjective well-being (SWB) which can be seen as the opposite of the social indicators. From the perspective of SWB,QOL can be understood as a specific person’s evaluation of their own quality of life and QOL here is not presented as data but as a subjective description. The QOL presented in this angle shows a great difference from above two, which is the macroscopic difference in statistical data. The QOL from the SWB perspective is the difference in microscopic sense as it is unlikely that two persons give exactly same QOL description. Additionally,SWB as an important self-report it can directly reflect the internal values ?​of individuals and their perception of the current environment, independent from the influence of academic institutions and policymakers. Based on these strengths, SWB has received a higher evaluation recently.For example, SWB becoming more prominent in the European policy agenda in the last decade and OECD has issued guidelines on how to measure SWB (Eurofound 2017).However, this does not mean SWB is flawless. One of question raised by Diener and Suh (1997) is that people’s views on SWB are more flexible which largely based on the comparison between themselves and others and people tend to select one for comparison that can give them better results.Moreover, small thing even a glass of water that can have a significant impact on a person’s SWB but a glass of water appears to not helpful in measuring QOL. Cultural factors can also affect SWB, despite the relatively well social indicators, Japan because its humble morality the self-report SWB turned out to be modest (Diener and Suh 1997).

It can be seen from the above that three different styles of QOL thinking can be obtained from three different measurement methods and each of the methods has its own advantages and disadvantages which can cover the places that may not be covered by each other. Therefore, there is an effective complementarity between the three. Furthermore, using three methods same time are likely to get a more accurate view of QOL. Through the combination of three measurement methods, a possible definition of QOL can be given here: QOL refers to the comprehensive evaluation of economic indicators, social indicators and SWB to obtain a description of the human experience within a certain range.

This essay attempts to demonstrate that three different measurement methods provide different perspective on QOL and a combination of three measurements can result in a more accurate QOL picture.Through the evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the three methods, it indicates the necessity of combining the three to measure QOL. Additionally, the possible QOL definition is given according to the new combined measurement method. Various examples and the results of previous scholars’ research provide support for above argument. It therefore shows that the study of QOL requires cross-disciplinary perspective and rely solely on measurement is not appropriate.This result may encourage different disciplines to participate in the study of QOL that can guide human beings a better way to live.

References：

[1]Diener, D and Suh, E.. Measuring quality of life: economic,  social, and subjective indicators[J]. Social Indicators Research,1997,40(1-2): 189-216.

[2]Eurofound.. European Quality of Life Survey: Quality of life,quality of pubic services,and quality of society[J]. [online].Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union,2017.

[3]Moller, V.. Resilient or resigned? Criminal victimization and quality of life in South Africa[J]. Social Indicators Research,2005,72:263-317.

【作者簡介】刘沁谊(1998.04-)，女，汉族，重庆涪陵人，重庆大学，在读本科生，研究方向：文学和文化中的性别问题。