Proxy for Quality of Life

How does one measure “quality of life” in a country? The topic is subjective, after all. Which criteria do you select for comparison? Can those criteria always be quantified? On the other hand, some quantifiable items are debatable – is a high value necessarily a sign that things are better? Others, like per-capita income (average income) are messy – the kind of life one can have with a salary of say, $50,000 per year in the US is vastly worse than the kind of life one can have with the equivalent (₹ 40 lakhs per year) in India because purchasing power differs. What about the unquantifiables, like the convenience of door delivery, and affordability of, say, maids?

 

In Numbers Don’t Lie, Vaclav Slim suggests that one particular metric, while not perfect, might be a good way to determine quality of life. What is that? The infant mortality rate –the number of babies per thousand births that die in the first year of life.

 

Why that number? Because, he says, it is a good proxy for many other things in the country. Like the quality, accessibility, and affordability of basic healthcare facilities, both wrt the mother and the baby. It is also indicative of the presence or absence of “sanitary living conditions” and “access to social support”, either in the form of relatives or government provided institutions.

 

But even this metric has its limitations, Slim warns. Even among the richer countries, the infant mortality rate shows a pattern. It is best for smaller countries, with small and homogeneous populations. Thus, countries like Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Japan and South Korea rank highest. Put differently, countries like larger, heterogenous countries like Germany, the US, or the UK can’t match those tiny countries with small, homogeneous populations.

 

So while there is no perfect proxy for quality of life, infant mortality rate may be a decent metric. Until we find something better.