Abstract:
This article describes the development and application of an original
quality-of-life assessment tool. Part 1 reflects on how the practical challenges
the Nova Institute faces working in the low-income context in South Africa
inspired us to develop an original quality-of-life assessment tool. Part 2
examines how this endeavour builds on the insights of quality-of-life studies
as a sub-discipline of sociology, but specifically also on the conceptual
work of Manfred Max-Neef. Part 3 describes the methods used to design a
quality-of-life assessment tool and explains how Max-Neef’s concepts are
expounded to develop the tool. Part 4 presents an example from the results of a
general household survey in more than a thousand households, together with an
in-depth quality-of-life assessment in 46 of these households, to illustrate the
application of the tool. We conclude that the tool provides a practical way to
sensibly combine subjective and objective indicators in quality-of-life analysis.
Description:
This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Quality of life
in the household context’ presented at Online Workshop, Reflections on the
thought of Manfred Max-Neef – A Dialogue with Contemporary Economics,
the Institute of Economics at the Universidad Austral de Chile, 1–2 October
2020.
