Living Condition Index measurements and analysis in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Abstract

Traditional methods to monitor and measure well-being and poverty are mainly based on comprehensive household surveys or pure monetary approaches. They have to be comprehensive or complemented by administrative data to give a thorough overview of the complex concept of well-being, where poverty constitutes the lower end of the scale. The approach employed here is to view well-being in terms of quality of life as perceived by the concerned individuals and adopt a quality–satisfaction–performance framework. Satisfaction with the present living conditions as a whole can then be measured in parallel with expectations and other enabler (driver side) constructs. Well-being may be seen as the composite of a number of components related to the actual living conditions, such as food, health, education, housing, time use, security and economic opportunities. These may be evaluated and estimated to indicate proposed level and interrelationships between them. From such analytical results a basis for planning, priority setting and evaluation may be formulated. Components with low satisfaction and high impact on the aggregate well-being should be targets for policy interventions and could be monitored in more detail in regular follow-up studies. The said framework is illustrated here for the case of greater Saint Petersburg. The living conditions measurements are expected to be carried out on a regular basis in conjunction with interested institutions like Government representatives and non-government organizations.