Improved Multidimensional Quality of Life Index Based on Outranking Relations

Abstract

The aim of this research is to propose an improved multidimensional quality of life index, which could replace the current methodology designed by Eurostat and applied by the national statistical institutes of the European Union member states. The novelty of the proposed index is that it is based on a non-compensatory multicriteria decision method (ELECTRE III). All other quality of life indices propose compensatory aggregation methods at some stage in the construction of the index. The data used in this study are openly available on the website of the INE, which is the Spanish National Statistics Institute, and were obtained by INE from population surveys. The data were entered by the authors in the Diviz software to conduct an ELECTRE III method. Three innovative versions for the multidimensional quality of life index are proposed in this study, which are called Basic ELECTRE, Full ELECTRE, and Full Fuzzy ELECTRE. The comparison of the results obtained by INE with the results provided by our proposals shows that it is possible to construct an improved multidimensional quality of life index to be applied by the member states of the European Union.