LIVING STANDARD AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE EU AND THE MEMBERSHIP CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

In this paper living standards and quality of life in 32 European countries are described and discussed. To express living standards, both Gross domestic product per head of population in purchasing power parities (GDPpcPPP) and the Human development index (HDI) from the UNDP, consisting of GDPpcPPP, life expectancy at birth and an education index are used. Quality of life is expressed by the Quality of life index (QLI) from the Economist and consists of 9 different aspects. Furthermore, the author investigated the possibile importance of the income distribution for GDP pc and HDI. The results of some statistical calculations showed that there are high and positive correlations between GDP pc, life expectancy at birth and an education variable. Because of the construction of HDI, even the correlations between these variables and the index are high. Furthermore the rankings between the 32 countries, regarding HDI, GDP pc PPP and QLI have high and positive correlations. How important is income distribution? While the correlations between different income distribution variables are high and have the expected signs, the correlations between income distribution on one hand and GDP pc and HDI on the other hand had the expected signs, but are not significant.