Murray, MontaguPauw, Christiaan Johannes2023-08-042022-10Murray, M. & Pauw, C. 2022, 'A novel tool for quality-of-life assessment in the household context', International Journal of Sustainable Development, vol. 25, nos. 1/2, pp. 95-113, doi : 10.1504/IJSD.2022.10051426.0960-1406 (print)1741-5268 (online)10.1504/IJSD.2022.10051426http://hdl.handle.net/2263/91794This 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.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.en© 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.Max-NeefNeeds theoryHuman scale developmentQuality of life (QoL)Social indicatorsFundamental human needsQuality of life assessmentPostprint Article