Physical Quality of Life Index

The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) is an attempt to measure the quality of life or well-being of a country. The value is the average of three statistics: basic literacy rate, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 0 to 100 scale.

It was developed for the Overseas Development Council in the mid-1970s by Morris David Morris, as one of a number of measures created due to dissatisfaction with the use of GNP as an indicator of development. PQLI might be regarded as an improvement but shares the general problems of measuring quality of life in a quantitative way. It has also been criticized because there is considerable overlap between infant mortality and life expectancy.

The UN Human Development Index is a more widely used means of measuring well-being.

Steps to Calculate Physical Quality of Life:

1) Find percentage of the population that is literate (literacy rate).

2) Find the infant mortality rate. (out of 1000 births) INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate = (166 - infant mortality) × 0.625

3) Find the Life Expectancy. INDEXED Life Expectancy = (Life expectancy - 42) × 2.7

4) Physical Quality of Life =

(Literacy Rate + INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate + INDEXED Life Expectancy) _________________________________________________________________________ 3

Famous quotes containing the words physical, quality, life and/or index:

    Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,—a certain robust and radiant physical health; or—shall I say?—great volumes of animal heat.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.
    Maya Angelou (b. 1928)

    Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist—the only thing he’s good for—is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it’s only his view of a meaning. That’s what he’s for—to give his view of life.
    Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)

    Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
    Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)