What Is the Difference between Standard of Living and Quality of Life?

@browncoat – It is interesting the way the two concepts interact. If your children are vaccinated, is that a higher standard of living? What if you refuse to get them vaccinated and are legally allowed to do so? There are countries where it is mandatory for all children to be vaccinated whether the parents want them to be or not and disease rates have dropped considerably in those countries. Does that mean the standard has risen and the quality of life (which includes the freedom to make medical choices) has dropped? It’s never that simple.

browncoat

June 9, 2014

@pleonasm – That’s a complex problem, though and I don’t think it can be traced directly to quality of life. Or, if it can, it might simply be that people on the edge of survival don’t have time to think about suicide.

Quality of life shouldn’t just be about how happy someone seems to be. Any person who is a refugee is likely suffering from a low standard of living and quality of life, because they don’t have freedom or material wealth.

I do think that quality of life is an important factor to take into account and that happiness and freedom should be important to policy planners in any country, but I also think that a certain guaranteed standard of living is more important.