The worldwide methodologies for assessing living standards

Abstract

In this article the authors show how they determined the stages of development of the methodological concepts used for assessing the quality of life (QL) from a worldwide perspective. Using a wide range of theoretical and statistical information, they describe the characteristics and critics to different methods of assessing worldwide quality of life. The authors argue that human development can be defined as an enlargement process of opportunities for people to choose from. Every day people make many choices in the economic, social and political area. From the perspective of human development, opportunities for people to choose from extend, in most cases, in three critical areas: life expectancy, educational level, and access to economical resources necessary for a decent level of living. Human development is both a process and a final result. All existing methodologies for assessing quality of life, in a way or another, express quite relevantly the quality of life, but, from different perspectives. However, they are able to assess countries’ competitiveness in the world.