Basic Guide to the World: Quality of Life Throughout the World

Quality of Life Throughout the World Basic Guide to the World Quality of Life Throughout the World A report from The Global Social Change Research Project Copyright December 2005 Page 1 Quality of Life Throughout the World This report was prepared by The Global Social Change Research Project The project began in 2000, as a way to help understand how society works. This project includes presenting reports about how the world has changed recently, for example population and economic changes. We hope that our reports can be used to help the public come to a better understanding of society today. We also hope that the reports and data used to prepare these reports will be useful for researchers, students and teachers. Gene Shackman, Ph.D. Applied Sociologist Founder and Director The Global Social Change Research Project http://gsociology.icaap.org Ya-Lin Liu, Ph.D. The Global Social Change Research Project http://gsociology.icaap.org George Xun Wang, Ph.D. The University of Wisconsin, Parkside Department of Sociology/Anthropology http://www.uwp.edu/departments/sociology and The Global Social Change Research Project http://gsociology.icaap.org All reports and data sets created by the Global Social Change Research Project are available through the project web site and are freely available for teaching and non profit research use. For profit or commercial use are prohibited. This report was created using OpenOffice. http://www.openoffice.org/ Page 2 Quality of Life Throughout the World Table of Contents: 1. Overview..............................................................................................................page 4 2. Health (represented by infant mortality rate)......................................................page 6 3. Economic well being (represented by GDP per Capita).....................................page 9 4. Literacy................................................................................................................page 12 5. Freedom...............................................................................................................page 15 6. Life Satisfaction..................................................................................................page 19 7. Relationship among health, economics, literacy, freedom, life satisfaction......page 22 How to understand this report (and any others like it).........................................page 26 • What this report can tell you. • Limitations to indicators. Appendix................................................................................................................page 31 A. Other reports with similar information. B. Additional resources. C. Data used in this report. Page 3 Quality of Life Throughout the World Overview This report shows quality of life over time: • By world regions • For selected countries This report shows quality of life by describing: • Health • Economic wellbeing • Education1 • Freedom2 (political freedom and civil liberties) • Self perceived wellbeing or satisfaction These are typical indicators of quality of life3. 1 We use data from UNESCO for developing countries, and data from CIA World Factbook for developed countries. UNESCO has data for 1990 and 2000, but only for developing countries. World Factbook mostly has data for most recent year, generally 2000, but some times only for earlier years, as early as 1980. 2 Freedom is Political rights which “enable people to participate freely in the political process”, and Civil liberties which “allow for the freedoms of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy without interference from the state.” From the Freedom House, retrieved January 1, 2006, from http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=35&year=2005 3 André, Pierre and Dieudonné Bitondo. (2001) Development of a Conceptual and Methodological Framework for the Integrated Assessment of the Impacts of Linear Infrastructure Projects on Quality of Life. Prepared for the Research and Development Monograph Series. Retrieved March 31, 2009 from http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=C10DF5DB-1 Page 4 Quality of Life Throughout the World Overview • In general, quality of life improved in most regions and in most aspects of life. • Quality of life is by far the best in North America and Western Europe. • On most indicators, quality of life is worst in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some exceptions • Infant mortality rate got worse in the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union countries). • Economic wellbeing declined very slightly in Sub-Saharan Africa. • The Near East and North Africa had the least freedom, with no change in the last 20 years. The percent of people who were free in Sub-Saharan Africa also declined in that time. Page 5 Quality of Life Throughout the World Health (measured by infant mortality rate) Figure 1. Infant Mortality Rates (Infant deaths per 1,000 births) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Asia (excluding Near East) CIS Latin Near East Oceania America and the Caribbean 1990 SubSaharan Africa Western Europe Northern America 2000 Data from US Census International Database CIS = Commonwealth of Independent States, including Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and so on. By Region • Infant mortality rates decreased in every region between 1990 and 2000, except for the CIS, where it increased. • Infant mortality rates are very much lower in Western Europe and North America and very much higher in Sub-Saharan Africa. Page 6 Quality of Life Throughout the World Lowest Infant Mortality Rates Table 1 Countries with lowest IMR in 1990 Country Region IMR 1990 IMR 2000 Iceland Western Europe 4.1 4.5 Japan Asia 4.6 3.4 Finland Western Europe 5.7 3.7 Sweden Western Europe 6.1 3.0 Hong Kong Asia 6.5 3.2 Netherlands Western Europe 6.6 5.4 Norway Western Europe 6.8 3.8 Switzerland Western Europe 7.0 4.5 Singapore Asia 7.1 3.0 Canada North America 7.1 5.1 Spain Western Europe 7.2 4.6 Germany Western Europe 7.2 4.3 United Kingdom Western Europe 7.3 5.5 France Western Europe 7.4 4.6 Luxembourg Western Europe 7.5 5.2 • The countries with lowest IMR were mainly in Western Europe, but also in Asia and North America. • IMR improved within all of these countries except for a slight increase in Iceland. Page 7 Quality of Life Throughout the World Highest Infant Mortality Rates Table 2 Countries with highest IMR in 1990 Country Region IMR 1990 IMR 2000 Angola Sub-Saharan Africa 207.8 197.1 Afghanistan Asia 180.9 165.1 Liberia Sub-Saharan Africa 172.0 174.0 Sierra Leone Sub-Saharan Africa 169.8 169 Western Sahara Northern Africa 165.7 133.6 Mozambique Sub-Saharan Africa 147.7 136.6 Mali Sub-Saharan Africa 141.1 118.5 Bhutan Asia 132.5 111.0 Niger Sub-Saharan Africa 131.7 126.6 Guinea-Bissau Sub-Saharan Africa 131.4 116.3 Malawi Sub-Saharan Africa 127.5 105.1 Djibouti Sub-Saharan Africa 125.8 111.3 Somalia Sub-Saharan Africa 125.7 125.7 Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa 125.6 103.7 Chad Sub-Saharan Africa 123.6 101.3 • The countries with highest IMR were mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and also in Asia and one in North Africa. • IMR improved within most of these countries except for an increase in Liberia. There was only a very small change in Sierra Leone, and apparently no change in Somalia. Page 8 Quality of Life Throughout the World GDP per Capita Figure 2 GDP per Capita Thousand 1995 US dollars 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Asia (excluding Near East) CIS/ Eastern Europe Latin America and the Caribbean 1980 Near East 1990 SubSaharan Africa Western Europe Northern America 2000 Data from US Energy Information Administration By Region • GDP per Capita steadily increased in Asia, Western Europe and in Northern America. GDP per Capita decreased very slightly in Sub-Saharan Africa. • GDP per Capita is very much higher in Western Europe and North America and very much lower in Sub-Saharan Africa. Page 9 Quality of Life Throughout the World Lowest GDP per Capita Table 3 Countries with lowest GDP per Capita in 1980 shown in dollars Country Region Bhutan Asia Ethiopia GDP/ Capita 1980 GDP/ Capita 2000 94 206 Sub Saharan Africa 104 108 Chad Sub Saharan Africa 129 228 Nepal Asia 154 234 Mozambique Sub Saharan Africa 155 184 Afghanistan Asia 155 77 China Asia 166 817 Malawi Sub Saharan Africa 167 161 Burundi Sub Saharan Africa 181 150 Gambia, The Sub Saharan Africa 189 395 Tanzania Sub Saharan Africa 190 184 Liberia Sub Saharan Africa 198 No data Burkina Faso Sub Saharan Africa 205 249 Viet Nam Asia 210 371 Uganda Sub Saharan Africa 211 344 • The countries with the lowest GPD per Capita are mainly in Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. • Most countries had improvements in GDP per Capita. • A few countries had declines (Afghanistan, Malawi, Burundi, Tanzania). • A few countries had large increases (China, Gambia, Bhutan). Page 10 Quality of Life Throughout the World Highest GDP per Capita Table 4 Countries with highest GDP per Capita in 1980 shown in thousands of dollars Country Region Switzerland Europe Qatar GDP/ Capita 1980 GDP/ Capita 2000 39.8 46.9 Near East 37 18.1 United Arab Emirates Near East 34.9 16.9 34 36.9 Bermuda North America Brunei Asia 29.8 16 Libya Near East 29.8 6.2 Luxembourg Europe 28.8 58.2 Japan Asia 28.2 44.6 Denmark Europe 27.3 38.7 West Germany Europe 26.8 No data Norway Europe 23.8 39.5 Sweden Europe 23 32.9 Austria Europe 22.6 33.3 Iceland Europe 22.4 31.2 France Europe 21.7 29.2 Belgium Europe 21.3 30.9 United States North America 21.2 31.9 • Several countries in the Near East had highest GDPs per Capita in 1980, but their GDP per Capita all declined. • Other countries with highest GDPs per Capita were in Europe, North America, and two in Asia. The GDP per Capita for these countries all increased. Page 11 Quality of Life Throughout the World Literacy Figure 3 Literacy Rate 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Asia (excluding Near East) CIS and Eastern Europe Latin America and the Caribbean Near East 1990 SubSaharan Africa Western Europe Northern America 2000 Data from UNESCO, except for Western Europe and Northern America, 2000 data from CIA World Factbook. By Region • Literacy rates increased throughout the world between 1990 and 2004 • In general, literacy rates are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and highest in the CIS and Northern America and Western Europe. Page 12 Quality of Life Throughout the World Lowest literacy Table 5 Countries with lowest literacy rates in 1980 Country Region Percent Percent Literate Literate 1980 2000 Niger Sub-Saharan Africa 11.4 17.1 The Gambia Sub-Saharan Africa 25.6 No data Benin Sub-Saharan Africa 26.4 39.8 Guinea Sub-Saharan Africa 27.2 No data Chad Sub-Saharan Africa 27.7 45.8 Senegal Sub-Saharan Africa 28.4 39.3 Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa 28.6 41.5 Nauru Oceania 30.4 No data Nepal Asia 30.4 44 Yemen Near East 32.7 49 Central African Republic Sub-Saharan Africa 33.2 48.6 Mozambique Sub-Saharan Africa 33.5 46.5 Bangladesh Asia 34.2 41.1 Mauritania Sub-Saharan Africa 34.8 41.2 Pakistan Asia 35.4 41.5 Iraq Near East 35.7 No data • The countries with the very lowest literacy rates are in Sub Saharan Africa. Other low literacy countries are in Asia and the Near East. • All of these low literacy countries (for which there are data) showed an increase in literacy rate. • Many countries have very large growth in literacy rate. Page 13 Quality of Life Throughout the World Highest literacy Table 6 Countries with highest literacy rates in 1980 (Unesco data) or highest literacy rates in 2000 (World Factbook) Country Region Percent Percent Literate Literate 1980 2000 Andorra* Western Europe 100 Australia* Oceania 100 Denmark* Western Europe 100 Western Europe 100 Western Europe 100 Luxembourg* Western Europe 100 Norway* Western Europe 100 Czech Republic* Eastern Europe 99.9 Western Europe 99.9 Finland * Liechtenstein Iceland * * Estonia Baltics 99.8 99.8 Poland Eastern Europe 99.6 No data Slovenia Eastern Europe 99.6 99.7 Belarus CIS 99.5 99.7 Barbados Latin America and Caribbean 99.4 99.7 Ukraine CIS 99.4 99.6 Lithuania Baltics 99.3 99.6 Russia CIS 99.2 99.6 Hungary Eastern Europe 99.1 No data Data from UNESCO, or (*) Data from CIA World Factbook • The countries with the highest literacy rates are in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, CIS, and the Baltics. Two others are in Oceania and the Caribbean. Page 14 Quality of Life Throughout the World Freedom Figure 4 Percent of countries that are free 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Asia and Oceania (excluding Near East) Latin America and the Caribbean Near East and North Africa 1980 Sub-Saharan Africa Western Europe and North America 2000 Data source: The Freedom House • There was an increase in the percent of countries that were free, except there was no increase in the Near East and North Africa. • Western Europe had the highest percent of countries that were free, and Africa and the Near East had the lowest percent. Page 15 Quality of Life Throughout the World Figure 5 Percent of people that live in countries that are free 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Asia and Oceania (excluding Near East) Latin America and the Caribbean Near East and North Africa 1980 Sub-Saharan Africa Western Europe and North America 2000 Data source: The Freedom House • There was an increase in the number of people who lived in countries that were free increased, except for no increase in the Near East and North Africa, and a decrease in Sub Saharan Africa. • Western Europe had the highest percent of people living in countries that were free, and Africa and the Near East had the lowest percent. Page 16 Quality of Life Throughout the World Lowest Freedom Table 7 Countries with least freedom, 1980 Country Region Increase in freedom, 1980 to 2000 Afghanistan Asia None Albania Eastern Europe LARGE Angola Sub-Saharan Africa Very slight Bulgaria Eastern Europe LARGE Cambodia Asia Very slight Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa Slight East Germany Europe * Guinea Sub-Saharan Africa Slight Laos Asia Very slight Mongolia Asia LARGE Mozambique Sub-Saharan Africa LARGE North Korea Asia None Somalia Sub-Saharan Africa Very slight Viet Nam Asia Very slight • Countries with the lowest freedom were in Asia, Eastern Europe and SubSaharan Africa. • Several of these countries showed a large increase in freedom, including Albania, Bulgaria, Mongolia and Mozambique. • A few countries shows slight increases in freedom, including Ethiopia and Guinea. * East Germany no longer exists as a separate country. Page 17 Quality of Life Throughout the World Highest Freedom Table 8 Countries with most freedom, 1980 Country Region Change in freedom, 1980 to 2000 Australia Oceania None Austria Western Europe None Barbados Latin America/Caribbean None Canada North America None Costa Rica Latin America/Caribbean Very slight decrease Denmark Western Europe None Iceland Western Europe None Ireland Western Europe None Japan Asia Very slight decrease Luxembourg Western Europe None Netherlands Western Europe None New Zealand Oceania None Norway Western Europe None Sweden Western Europe None Switzerland Western Europe None United Kingdom Western Europe Very slight decrease United States North America None • Countries with the highest freedom were in Western Europe, North America, Oceania, Latin America/Caribbean, and one in Asia. • Most countries showed no change in freedom. A few had very slight decrease. Page 18 Quality of Life Throughout the World Life satisfaction Figure 6 Percent of countries in which people are satisfied or not satisfied with life, 2005 Country average response to satisfaction with life scale. Dissatisfied=score of below 5. Satisfied=score of 7 or above. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Asia and Oceania (excluding Near East) CIS, Baltics Latin America and the and Eastern Caribbean Europe Dissatisfied Near East and North Africa Sub-Saharan Western Africa Europe and North America Satisfied Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit. • People in Sub-Saharan Africa and the CIS are, on average, most dissatisfied*. • People in Western Europe, North America and Asia are, on average, most satisfied. * Data for Sub-Saharan Africa is based on 7 countries but these countries have 38% of Africa's population. Page 19 Quality of Life Throughout the World Least Satisfied. Table 9 Least Satisfied • Country Region Level of Satisfaction, 2005 Zimbabwe Sub-Saharan Africa 3.9 Haiti Latin America and Caribbean 4.0 Tanzania Sub-Saharan Africa 4.5 Nigeria Sub-Saharan Africa 4.5 Tajikistan Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 4.8 Uzbekistan CIS 4.8 Russia CIS 4.8 Botswana Sub-Saharan Africa 4.8 Kyrgyzstan CIS 4.8 Turkmenistan CIS 4.9 Uganda Sub-Saharan Africa 4.9 Belarus CIS 4.98 People in less developed countries, and in the former soviet union, are, on average, dissatisfied. Page 20 Quality of Life Throughout the World Most Satisfied. Table 9 Most Satisfied • Country Region Level of Satisfaction, 2005 Ireland Western Europe 8.3 Switzerland Western Europe 8.1 Norway Western Europe 8.1 Luxembourg Western Europe 8 Sweden Western Europe 7.9 Australia Oceania 7.9 Iceland Western Europe 7.9 Italy Western Europe 7.8 Denmark Western Europe 7.8 Spain Western Europe 7.7 Singapore Asia 7.7 Finland Western Europe 7.6 United States North America 7.6 Canada North America 7.6 New Zealand Oceania 7.4 Netherlands Western Europe 7.4 Japan Asia 7.4 Hong Kong Asia 7.3 Portugal Western Europe 7.3 Austria Western Europe 7.3 Taiwan Asia 7.3 People in most of the developed countries are, on average, more satisfied. Page 21 Quality of Life Throughout the World Relationship among quality of life indicators. In general, many of the quality of life indicators are fairly well related. Table 10 Correlations among basic indicators Infant Mortality Rate GDP Per Capita Literacy Rate GDP Per Capita -0.52 Literacy Rate -0.69 0.32 Freedom -0.53 0.48 0.2 Satisfaction -0.73 0.79 0.3 Freedom 0.67 Data from International Database, Unesco, Freedom House and Economist In this table, freedom is reverse scored. Freedom correlates positively with GDP per capita and literacy rate, and negatively with infant mortality rate. Unesco literacy data are only for developing countries. Strong relationships • Infant mortality rate is strongly related to other quality of life indicators. • Life satisfaction has a strong relationship to freedom and GDP per capita. Weak relationships • Among developing countries, literacy rate has low relationship to economic well being, freedom and life satisfaction. Page 22 Quality of Life Throughout the World Figure 7 Relationship between GDP per Capita and Life Satisfaction 70 GDP per Capita 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 Satisfaction • In general, when economic wellbeing is higher, life satisfaction is also higher. Page 23 Quality of Life Throughout the World Figure 8 Relationship between infant mortality rate and life satisfaction Infant Mortality Rate 250 200 150 100 50 0 0.000 2.000 4.000 6.000 8.000 10.000 Satisfaction • In general, when infant mortality is lower, life satisfaction is higher. Page 24 Quality of Life Throughout the World Figure 9 Relationship between Literacy Rate and Freedom 100 Literacy Rate 80 60 40 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Freedom Among developing countries, there is little relationship between literacy rate and freedom. That is, countries with high literacy rates are no more likely to have more freedom than are countries with low literacy rates. When World Factbook data are used, which includes developing and developed countries, the relationship does not change. There is still little relationship between literacy rates and freedom. There is also little relationship between literacy and life satisfaction, and between literacy rates and economic wellbeing. Page 25 Quality of Life Throughout the World How to understand this report (and any others like it). What this report can tell you. This report can be a good overview of or introduction to quality of life throughout the world. This report can be a good starting point, to help understand where to look next for more information. But there are limitations to this report and others like it because of: 1. Problems with indicators. 2. Reporting indicators by region or by country. 3. Whether indicators measure quality of life. These limitations are described in the following pages. Because there are limitations, the best way to view this report is to look at general patterns, and to look where different indicators tell the same story. For example: Most of the indicators in this report show that there has been improvement in quality of life. Also find out where this report says the same thing as do other reports. (Or where other reports have findings similar to findings of other reports.) Page 26 Quality of Life Throughout the World Limitations of indicators: measurement problems. • Infant mortality rate is infant deaths per 1,000 births. Problem: In developing countries, infant mortality is often not well reported1. • GDP is “a measure of total production of goods and services in an economy”2. GDP per Capita is the GDP divided by the population. Problem3: GDP per Capita doesn't include underground economy (e.g., illegal activities, not reporting incomes or payments to government, etc.). In some countries, underground activities can be very substantial. • Literacy is the ability to read and write. Problem. Literacy in developing countries is often self declared, and often underestimates illiteracy4. People may not admit illiteracy. 1Advisory Committee on Indicators, Indicator name: Infant mortality rate by sex. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/indicatorfoc/indsearchpage.asp?cid=1&indedit=Go says “Many developing countries lack reliable registration systems and obtain data on mortality based on indirect estimates. Even where a fairly good registration system is in place, many infants dying during the first weeks of life are not registered as having been born.” 2 Nouriel Roubini and David Backus, Lectures in Macroeconomics, Chapter 1: Monitoring Macroeconomic Performance. http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/NOTES/CHAP1.HTM 3This and other problems are summarized in “Major economic trends” http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/econ/econsum.html Shackman G, Liu Y and Wang X. 2005. 4 United Nations Human Development Report, Selected measurement issues. http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/understanding/measurement.cfm section on measuring literacy in the 2004 report. Page 27 Quality of Life Throughout the World Limitations of indicators: measurement problems. Different measures of the same thing may also show different outcomes. For example, among developing countries, UNESCO literacy rate is nearly the same as World Fact book literacy rate (correlation = 0.97), and Energy Information Administration (EIA) GDP per Capita is close to the same as World Fact book GDP per Capita (correlation = 0.89). However, literacy and GDP per capita are more closely related when using the World Fact book indicators than they are when using the UNESCO and EIA indicators. Table 11 Correlations of literacy rate with GDP per Capita Literacy Rate UNESCO GDP per Capita (EIA) GDP per Capita World Fact book Literacy Rate World Fact book 0.32 0.51 That is, different reports can have different conclusions, because of use of different data. Page 28 Quality of Life Throughout the World Limitations of indicators: reporting indicators by region or by country. Describing quality of life by world “region” is useful as an overall indicator. However, any single country may be very different from it's region. For example, in Asia: Japan and Hong Kong have very low infant mortality rates. Afghanistan and Bhutan have very high infant mortality rates. So quality of life in a region doesn't necessarily show quality of life in a country in that region. Similarly, describing quality of life for a country doesn't necessarily show the quality of life for everyone in the country. Some groups may have better conditions, and some groups may have worse. Page 29 Quality of Life Throughout the World Limitations of indicators: whether indicators measure quality of life. • GDP per Capita doesn't account for change in quality of goods1. If computers, air conditioners, refrigerators, get better, they are still the same “product”, so GDP per Capita doesn't change, but quality of life is better. • More problems in a country (e.g., more crime, more disease) leads to more spending to fight those problems, which results in a higher GDP per Capita, but perhaps worse quality of life2. • As shown in this report, in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe, literacy is very high but other indicators show low quality of life. So literacy may not be an indicator of quality of life in those areas. • In the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe, literacy may be used by the government to oppose quality of life (e.g., freedom), for example, by controlling what people read, learn, know3. 1 Doepke, Matthias. Lecture notes for Econ 202 at Chicago (intermediate macroeconomics). "Chapter 2 - NIPA and the Measurement of Inflation" Retrieved from http://www.econ.ucla.edu/doepke/teaching/resources/index.html on March 23, 2005 2 Schenk, Robert.2004. Cyber Economics. http://ingrimayne.saintjoe.edu/econ/ See Limitations of GDP Statistics in Overview: Measuring the Economy section. 3 Suggested by Rudy Rummel, personal communication with Dr. Shackman, December 31, 2005. Dr. Rummel researches Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War, at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html Page 30 Quality of Life Throughout the World Appendix A. Other reports with similar information. Here we list other reports that show similar trends.. State of the World's Children at the Unicef Publications page http://www.unicef.org/publications/ the statistical tables are here http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/statistics.html showing data by country and region. Table 1. infant mortality rates, 1960 and 2003 Table 5. Adult Literacy Rates, 1990 and 2000, for male and female (but not for total) Table 6 birth rate, death rate, life expectancy, 1970 and 2003 Table 10 under 5 mortality rates, 1960, 1990 and 2003, and rate of progress. Beyond Economic Growth http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyond.htm has descriptions of health, economics, education and many other trends. Our Global Social Change Reports http://gsociology.icaap.org/reports.html include reports about major world demographic, social, political, economic trends, and also link to reports with similar information. Page 31 Quality of Life Throughout the World B. Additional Resources Measuring First Nations Well-Being: The Human Development Index (HDI) and the Community WellBeing Index (CWB) http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/ra/ Includes a brief review of major indicators and scales. Measuring quality of life using free and public domain data. Gene Shackman, Ya-Lin Liu and Xun Wang. Autumn, 2005. Social Research Update, http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/ Report number 47. Includes a brief discussion on measuring quality of life, a bibliography of other reviews and research, and a description of many of the data sets used in this report. Some of the references used in the SRU paper include Camfield, Laura. (2005) Researching Quality of Life in Developing Countries. April 2005 Newsletter of the ESRC Research Group on Well being in Developing Countries. Retrieved July 3, 2005 from http://www.welldev.org.uk/news/newsletter-april-05.htm Gasper, Des. (2004) Subjective and Objective Well-Being in Relation to Economic Inputs: Puzzles and Responses. Working paper WeD09, ESRC Research Group on Well being in Developing Countries. Retrieved July 3, 2005 from http://www.welldev.org.uk/research/working.htm Giovannini, Enrico. (2005) Progress measuring progress. Retrieved June 1 2005 from http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/1515/Progress_measuring_progress.html McGillivray, Mark. (2004) Towards a Measure of non-Economic National Well-being Achievements. ESRC Research Group on Well being in Developing Countries. Retrieved April 1, 2005 from http://www.welldev.org.uk/news/hanse-papers.htm Sharpe, Andrew and Jeremy Smith. (2005) Measuring the Impact of Research on Well-being. Report number: 2005-02. Centre for the Study of Living Standards. Feb 2005. Retrieved June 20, 2005 from http://www.csls.ca/res_reports.asp Veenhoven, Ruut. (2004) Subjective Measures of Well-being. Discussion Paper No. 2004/07. from The World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER). Retrieved March 20, 2005 from http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/publications.htm Page 32 Quality of Life Throughout the World C. Data used in this report. Data for this report are from PD-Plus at http://gsociology.icaap.org/dataupload.html This data file includes descriptions of data and sources. All of the data in PD-Plus are included in the data set by permission. The data used in this report are also described in detail here http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/cqual.html The data sets used in this report are from: International Database http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html Infant mortality rate and population Energy Information Administration http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/other.html#IntlGDP Gross domestic product per capita World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html Infant Mortality Rate GDP per capita Literacy rate The Freedom House ratings of freedom http://www.freedomhouse.org/ratings/index.htm Freedom is measured on a one-to-seven scale, with one representing the highest degree of freedom and seven the lowest. Page 33 Quality of Life Throughout the World UNESCO literacy rates Adult literacy rates, 1980 to 1995 http://www.uis.unesco.org/statsen/statistics/indicators/i_pages/IndLit.asp Adult literacy rate, 1990, 2000-2004 EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2005 http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.phpURL_ID=35939&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html See http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/cqual.html for details on calculating data by region. Econqual = The Economist Intelligence Unit's quality-of-life Index http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3372495&d=2005 http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf Page 34