Method
The survey uses nine quality of life factors to determine a nation's score. They are listed below including the indicators used to represent these factors:
- Healthiness: Life expectancy at birth (in years). Source: US Census Bureau
- Family life: Divorce rate (per 1,000 population), converted into index of 1 (lowest divorce rates) to 5 (highest). Sources: UN; Euromonitor
- Community life: Variable taking value 1 if country has either high rate of church attendance or trade-union membership; zero otherwise. Source: World Values Survey
- Material well being: GDP per person, at PPP in $. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
- Political stability and security: Political stability and security ratings. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
- Climate and geography: Latitude, to distinguish between warmer and colder climates. Source: CIA World Factbook
- Job security: Unemployment rate (%.) Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
- Political freedom: Average of indexes of political and civil liberties. Scale of 1 (completely free) to 7 (unfree). Source: Freedom House
- Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female earnings. Source: UNDP Human Development Report
Read more about this topic: Quality-of-life Index
Famous quotes containing the word method:
“Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind; neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)
“I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life—always growing and increasing—is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)