Thursday 20 October 2011

Conference "Kvalita života v podmienkach globalizácie", 26-27 October 2011

Just got an invitation and programme of the conference «Measuring quality of life in conditionas of globalization», organized by the National Statistical Office of Slovakia.

Conference will take place 26-27 October in hotel Apollo, Bratislava. The Programme looks really interesting and appealing. It includes discussion of conceptual questions (first half of 26 October), as well as practical applications (second half of 26 October), and making use of existing statistical tools for these purposes (27 October).

I am going to present our work on Multidimensional Social Exclusion measurement, which we did in countries of region—Macedonia an Serbia on Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine in Western CIS, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia; and most recently in Armenia on Caucasus.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

OECD Better Life Index

Numerous laces had been broken in debates how to measure «quality of life». The first problem we face, trying to measure the «quality» of our lives, is diversity and complexity of life. It is difficult to make and, moreover, to agree on a common list of areas and indicators in each area of quality of life. And it is even more difficult to squeeze all the diversity of life in one index, which is still necessary for any comparisons.

The second, less visible but more important issue-each of us differently value different aspects of life. For some, the incomes are of greatest value, while another pays more attention to decent work, and someone else put above all support from friends and family... Scientific, justified choice of «weights» for each area is a rather tricky task. The arbitrary choice of weight is in fact a political statement, to which occurs quite rarely. That is why most of the composite indices use equal weights for their dimensions-Human Development Index, Multidimensional Poverty Index, Multidimensional Social Exclusion Index. (Interestingly, in a recent paper, the authors obtained almost equal weights for the components of the Human Development Index , analyzing the data for the period 1975-2005)

OECD has found a very interesting approach to these issues in its «Better Life Index». First, they defined a list of areas from the «usual suspects» (housing, income, work safety, a total of 11 regions). Then they allowed users to decide on importance of each area (on a scale from 0 «not important» to 5 «very important»). Index itself is visualized for each of 34 countries in the form of a flower: petal size correspond to the each area, while the flower height-to composite index, taking into account the importances set by ​​the user.

Consideration of the quality of life is not limited to one composite index, you can see in detail how things look like in each area, such as support from the community. The most meticulous can reach up to full list of indicators and underlying data, used to calculate the index.

Ability to choose the importance of each area allows users to move away from the question «who is number 1?» and turn to more important question—how each of the 11 topics can contribute to overall well-being? Sure, we’ll see many more debates, «how to measure quality of life», but now everyone can do their research and take part in debates.


This post is also available in Russian

Thursday 27 January 2011

Human and Development: What we are talking about?

Two decades ago, in 1990, the first Global Human Development Report gave the birth to new concept of development—human development concept. English was main language of the report, as well as the working language for the most of authors. Translation of the concept in other languages, mostly Slavic ones, has faced difficulties. Mechanical translation of the term human development cannot translate the essence of the concept. It is important to avoid terminological misunderstanding, taking into account that during these two decades three terms appeared in Russian literature—«человеческое развитие», «развитие человеческого потенциала» and «развитие человека». This becoming especially relevant when one start thinking what are we measuring: development of society? personal development? process of development?

The most correct and most frequently used term is «человеческое развитие», which more correctly transfer the essence of the human development concept—type of development aimed on people, or, in other words “development of people, for people and by the people”. In the very first report Mahbub ul-Haq put it in the following way: “The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. People are real wealth of nations.” Namely by its orientation on people this concept differs from other development concepts. Actually, exactly in this way, by using adjective to the word “development”, the term is translated into French (développement humain), Spanish (desarrollo humano), Romanian (dezvoltarea umană) Czech (lidský rozvoj) and many other languages. Namely in this form one could find in dictionaries. Namely by this term one could find in search engines articles, manuals and other materials. Namely in this way was entitled human development manual, produced by Moscow State University.

Expression «развитие человеческого потенциала» is linked with the roots of the human development concept, namely the “human capital” theory of Schultz, which appeared in 1960s. Formation of human capital included not only expenditures for education, but also research and development expenses, health care services, family planning. In other words, all investments in people were considered as productive ones, regardless the aim—either to increase gross national product, or to increase human capabilities. Still, people were treated as a resource for development, the aim of development per se was economic development, and the measure of development was GDP growth. Also, human capital concept did not take into account empowerment of people and their participation in the development process. This term is most frequently used in the national and regional Human Development Reports in Russian Federation and for translation of “human development index into Russian. If you google it out, you will get mostly economic articles and Human Development Reports for Russia and its regions.

«Развитие человека» is related to biology, psychology, and anthropology. It could be used in very broad philosophical sense as “humankind development”. If you look for this term in search engines, you will get papers from anthropology, biology, psychology, and philosophy, but not ones related to the human development concept.
To sum up, the most appropriate translation of the human development term in Russian is «человеческое развитие». It most adequately translate the essence of the concept and is most frequently used in Russian papers. In future one should stick to this term to avoid terminological confusions.

Related materials:
Andrey Ivanov. "Internalizing the human development paradigm: reflections of a witness"