Study in standard of living—methodology of structure of selected indicators

Abstract

Social statistics has been interested for many years in such categories as: standard of living and quality of life. These two categories should be regarded separately, even though in common language they are often synonymous. For this reason, the initial part of this paper provides clarification for these terms along with comments related to terminology and methods used in the research. The paper is dedicated to only one of these categories, standard of living, yet discussion of both terms was necessary. Research on standard of living has been concentrated since 1950s on building a synthetic, objective indicator which would enable not only description of a phenomenon, but also comparison of the degree of meeting material and cultural needs in the international scale. The paper presents two research procedures: the Geneva method (distance) and the method of building the Human Development Index, HDI. In case of the Geneva method, the main methodological premises have been presented along with mathematical formulae which allow building the aggregated, synthetic indicator of the degree of meeting material and cultural needs. Both advantages and shortcomings of this method have been discussed. The traces of the distance method may also be noticed in the building method of the said HDI indicator. The premises and mathematical formulae adopted in this method to enable building this indicator have been presented. The HDI index has also been calculated on the basis of the 2010 data. As this index is used in international comparisons, the research results from 2010 and the rank of Poland among 169 countries of the world have also been given.