Sustainable development and quality of life in Poland compared to other OECD member countries

Abstract

The aim of the publication is to analyze the concept of sustainable development in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and De-velopment (OECD) with particular emphasis on the quality of life of Polish citizens against the background of other member countries of this organization. Analyzing selected measures of the sustainable development of OECD member countries in the period 2000-2018, the increase in social and individual well-being of the inhab-itants and the harmonious arrangement of the relationship between man and the human environment were revealed. The progressive degradation of the natural en-vironment was stopped, the effectiveness of using natural resources was increased and the comfort of life of the inhabitants was improved in the conditions of pro-gressive economic growth. Considering the total index of Better Life Index, it was found that Poland was in this respect in the third tenth of all 37 OECD member countries. Poland achieved better results than the average in the areas of "personal safety", "education", and "balance between work and home life". However, for the remaining eight criteria ("housing", "life satisfaction", "civic engagement", "work and wages", "society", "quality of the environment", "income and wealth", "health") Poland achieved much worse results than the average for OECD coun-tries.