About the Dataset

This dataset contains Quality of Life indices for various countries around the globe, extracted from the Numbeo website. The data provides valuable metrics for comparing countries based on several aspects of living standards, which can assist in decisions such as choosing a place to live or analyzing global trends in quality of life.

OBS: The code to generate this dataset is presented on: https://www.kaggle.com/code/marcelobatalhah/web-scrapping-quality-of-life-index

Columns in the Dataset

1. Rank:
   The global rank of the country based on its Quality of Life Index according to Year (1 = highest quality of life).

2. Country:
   The name of the country.

3. Quality of Life Index:
   A composite index that evaluates the overall quality of life in a country by combining other indices, such as Safety, Purchasing Power, and Health Care.

4. Purchasing Power Index:
   Measures the relative purchasing power of the average consumer in a country compared to New York City (baseline = 100).

5. Safety Index:
   Indicates the safety level of a country. A higher score suggests a safer environment.

6. Health Care Index:
   Evaluates the quality and accessibility of healthcare in the country.

7. Cost of Living Index:
   Measures the relative cost of living in a country compared to New York City (baseline = 100).

8. Property Price to Income Ratio:
   Compares the affordability of real estate by dividing the average property price by the average income.

9. Traffic Commute Time Index:
   Reflects the average time spent commuting due to traffic.

10. Pollution Index:
    Rates the level of pollution in the country (air, water, etc.).

11. Climate Index:
    Rates the favorability of the climate in the country (higher = more favorable).

12. Year:
    Year when the metrics were extracted.

Key Insights from the Dataset

• The Quality of Life Index aggregates multiple indicators, making it a useful single metric to compare countries.
• Specific indices such as Safety Index or Health Care Index allow for focused analysis on areas like security or healthcare quality.
• Cost of Living Index and Purchasing Power Index can help determine the affordability of living in each country.

How the Data Was Collected

• The dataset was built using web scraping techniques in Python.
• The data was extracted from the "Quality of Life Rankings by Country" page on Numbeo.
• Libraries used:
  • requests for retrieving webpage content.
  • BeautifulSoup for parsing the HTML and extracting relevant information.
  • pandas for organizing and storing the data in a structured format.

Possible Applications

1. Relocation Decision Making:
   Use the dataset to compare countries and identify destinations with high quality of life, safety, and healthcare.

2. Global Analysis:
   Perform exploratory data analysis (EDA) to identify trends and correlations across quality of life metrics.

3. Visualization:
   Plot global maps, bar charts, or other visualizations to better understand the data.

4. Predictive Modeling:
   Use this dataset as a base for machine learning tasks, like predicting Quality of Life Index based on other metrics.

Luxembourg stands out as the European leader in quality of life for 2025, achieving a score of 220 on the Quality of Life Index. The Netherlands follows closely behind with 211 points, while Albania and Ukraine rank at the bottom with scores of 104 and 115 respectively. This index provides a thorough assessment of living conditions across Europe, reflecting various factors that shape the overall well-being of populations and extending beyond purely economic metrics. Understanding the quality of life index The quality of life index is a multifaceted measure that incorporates factors such as purchasing power, pollution levels, housing affordability, cost of living, safety, healthcare quality, traffic conditions, and climate, to measure the overall quality of life of a Country. Higher overall index scores indicate better living conditions. However, in subindexes such as pollution, cost of living, and traffic commute time, lower values correspond to improved quality of life. Challenges affecting life satisfaction Despite the fact that European countries register high levels of life quality by for example leading the ranking of happiest countries in the world, life satisfaction across the European Union has been on a downward trend since 2018. The EU's overall life satisfaction score dropped from 7.3 out of 10 in 2018 to 7.1 in 2022. This decline can be attributed to various factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and economic challenges such as high inflation. Rising housing costs, in particular, have emerged as a critical concern, significantly affecting quality of life. This issue has played a central role in shaping voter priorities for the European Parliamentary Elections in 2024 and becoming one of the most pressing challenges for Europeans, profoundly influencing both daily experiences and long-term well-being.

Quality of Life Indicators by Country

Overview

This dataset provides a detailed view of quality-of-life metrics for various countries, sourced from Numbeo. It includes indicators such as purchasing power, safety, health care, climate, cost of living, property prices, traffic, pollution, and overall quality of life. The data combines both numerical scores and descriptive categories to give a comprehensive understanding of these metrics.

Dataset Content

The dataset includes the following columns:

1. country: Name of the country.
2. Purchasing Power Value: Numeric score for purchasing power.
3. Purchasing Power Category: Qualitative category for purchasing power.
4. Safety Value: Numeric safety index score.
5. Safety Category: Qualitative safety category.
6. Health Care Value: Numeric score for health care quality.
7. Health Care Category: Qualitative health care category.
8. Climate Value: Numeric score for climate quality.
9. Climate Category: Qualitative climate category.
10. Cost of Living Value: Numeric score for cost of living.
11. Cost of Living Category: Qualitative cost of living category.
12. Property Price to Income Value: Numeric ratio of property price to income.
13. Property Price to Income Category: Qualitative property price-to-income category.
14. Traffic Commute Time Value: Numeric score for commute times.
15. Traffic Commute Time Category: Qualitative traffic commute category.
16. Pollution Value: Numeric pollution index score.
17. Pollution Category: Qualitative pollution category.
18. Quality of Life Value: Numeric score for overall quality of life.
19. Quality of Life Category: Qualitative quality of life category.

Source

The data from Numbeo, a global database providing cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime, and pollution statistics for cities and countries.

Usage

This dataset can be used for: - Comparative analysis of quality-of-life indicators across countries. - Data visualization and storytelling for social, economic, or environmental trends. - Statistical modeling or machine learning projects on global living conditions.

Acknowledgments

The data was collected from Numbeo, which aggregates user-contributed data from individuals worldwide. Proper citation and credit to Numbeo are appreciated when using this dataset.

License

This data provided under Free Data Usage License by number. """

Abstract

Timor-Leste experienced a fundamental social and economic upheaval after its people voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum in August 1999. Population was displaced, and public and private infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable. Soon after the violence ceased, the country began rebuilding itself with the support from UN agencies, the international donor community and NGOs. The government laid out a National Development Plan (NDP) with two central goals: to promote rapid, equitable and sustainable economic growth and to reduce poverty.

Formulating a national plan and poverty reduction strategy required data on poverty and living standards, and given the profound changes experienced, new data collection had to be undertaken to accurately assess the living conditions in the country. The Planning Commission of the Timor-Leste Transitional Authority undertook a Poverty Assessment Project along with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This project comprised three data collection activities on different aspects of living standards, which taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of well-being in Timor-Leste. The first component was the Suco Survey, which is a census of all 498 sucos (villages) in the country. It provides an inventory of existing social and physical infrastructure and of the economic characteristics of each suco, in addition to aldeia (hamlet) level population figures. It was carried out between February and April 2001.

A second element was the Timor-Leste Living Standards Measurement Survey (TLSS). This is a household survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 families from 100 sucos. It was designed to diagnose the extent, nature and causes of poverty, and to analyze policy options facing the country. It assembles comprehensive information on household demographics, housing and assets, household expenditures and some components of income, agriculture, labor market data, basic health and education, subjective perceptions of poverty and social capital.

Data collection was undertaken between end August and November 2001.

The final component was the Participatory Potential Assessment (PPA), which is a qualitative community survey in 48 aldeias in the 13 districts of the country to take stock of their assets, skills and strengths, identify the main challenges and priorities, and formulate strategies for tackling these within their communities. It was completed between November 2001 and January 2002.

Geographic coverage

National coverage. Domains: Urban/rural; Agro-ecological zones (Highlands, Lowlands, Western Region, Eastern Region, Central Region)

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

SAMPLE SIZE AND ANALYTIC DOMAINS

A survey relies on identifying a subgroup of a population that is representative both for the underlying population and for specific analytical domains of interest. The main objective of the TLSS is to derive a poverty profile for the country and salient population groups. The fundamental analytic domains identified are the Major Urban Centers (Dili and Baucau), the Other Urban Centers and the Rural Areas. The survey represents certain important sub-divisions of the Rural Areas, namely two major agro-ecologic zones (Lowlands and Highlands) and three broad geographic regions (West, Center and East). In addition to these domains, we can separate landlocked sucos (Inland) from those with sea access (Coast), and generate categories merging rural and urban strata along the geographic, altitude, and sea access dimensions. However, the TLSS does not provide detailed indicators for narrow geographic areas, such as postos or even districts. [Note: Timor-Leste is divided into 13 major units called districts. These are further subdivided into 67 postos (subdistricts), 498 sucos (villages) and 2,336 aldeias (sub-villages). The administrative structure is uniform throughout the country, including rural and urban areas.]

The survey has a sample size of 1,800 households, or about one percent of the total number of households in Timor-Leste. The experience of Living Standards Measurement Surveys in many countries - most of them substantially larger than Timor-Leste - has shown that samples of that size are sufficient for the requirements of a poverty assessment.

The survey domains were defined as follows. The Urban Area is divided into the Major Urban Centers (the 31 sucos in Dili and the 6 sucos in Baucau) and the Other Urban Centers (the remaining 34 urban sucos outside Dili and Baucau). The rest of the country (427 sucos in total) comprises the Rural Area. The grouping of sucos into urban and rural areas is based on the Indonesian classification. In addition, we separated rural sucos both by agro-ecological zones and geographic areas. With the help of the Geographic Information System developed at the Department of Agriculture, sucos were subsequently qualified as belonging to the Highlands or the Lowlands depending on the share of their surface above and below the 500 m level curve. The three westernmost districts (Oecussi, Bobonaro and Cova Lima) constitute the Western Region, the three easternmost districts (Baucau, Lautem and Viqueque) the Eastern Region, and the remaining seven districts (Aileu, Ainaro, Dili, Ermera, Liquica, Manufahi and Manatuto) belong to the Central Region.

SAMPLING STRATA AND SAMPLE ALLOCATION

Our next step was to ensure that each analytical domain contained a sufficient number of households. Assuming a uniform sampling fraction of approximately 1/100, a non-stratified 1,800-household sample would contain around 240 Major Urban households and 170 Other Urban households -too few to sustain representative and significant analyses. We therefore stratified the sample to separate the two urban areas from the rural areas. The rural strata were large enough so that its implicit stratification along agro-ecological and geographical dimensions was sufficient to ensure that these dimensions were represented proportionally to their share of the population. The final sample design by strata was as follows: 450 households in the Major Urban Centers (378 in Dili and 72 in Baucau), 252 households in the Other Urban Centers and 1,098 households in the Rural Areas.

SAMPLING STRATEGY

The sampling of households in each stratum, with the exception of Urban Dili, followed a 3-stage procedure. In the first stage, a certain number of sucos were selected with probability proportional to size (PPS). Hence 4 sucos were selected in Urban Baucau, 14 in Other Urban Centers and 61 in the Rural Areas. In the second stage, 3 aldeias in each suco were selected, again with probability proportional to size (PPS). In the third stage, 6 households were selected in each aldeia with equal probability (EP). This implies that the sample is approximately selfweighted within the stratum: all households in the stratum had the same chance of being visited by the survey.

A simpler and more efficient 2-stage process was used for Urban Dili. In the first stage, 63 aldeias were selected with PPS and in the second stage 6 households with equal probability in each aldeia (for a total sample of 378 households). This procedure reduces sampling errors since the sample will be spread more than with the standard 3-stage process, but it can only be applied to Urban Dili as only there it was possible to sort the selected aldeias into groups of 3 aldeias located in close proximity of each other.

HOUSEHOLD LISTING

The final sampling stage requires choosing a certain number of households at random with equal probability in each of the aldeias selected by the previous sampling stages. This requires establishing the complete inventory of all households in these aldeias - a field task known as the household listing operation. The household listing operation also acquires importance as a benchmark for assessing the quality of the population data collected by the Suco Survey, which was conducted in February-March 2001. At that time, the number of households currently living in each aldeia was asked from the suco and aldeia chiefs, but there are reasons to suspect that these figures are biased. Specifically, certain suco and aldeia chiefs may have answered about households belonging, rather than currently living, in the aldeias, whereas others may have faced perverse incentives to report figures different from the actual ones. These biases are believed to be more serious in Dili than in the rest of the country.

Two operational approaches were considered for the household listing. One is the classical doorto-door (DTD) method that is generally used in most countries for this kind of operations. The second approach - which is specific of Timor-Leste - depends on the lists of families that are kept by most suco and aldeia chiefs in their offices. The prior-list-dependent (PLD) method is much faster, since it can be completed by a single enumerator in each aldeia, working most of the time in the premises of the suco or aldeia chief; however, it can be prone to biases depending on the accuracy and timeliness of the family lists.

After extensive empirical testing of the weaknesses and strengths of the two alternatives, we decided to use the DTD method in Dili and an improved version of the PLD method elsewhere. The improvements introduced to the PLD consisted in clarifying the concept of a household "currently living in the aldeia", both by intensive training and supervision of the enumerators and by making its meaning explicit in the form's wording (it means that the household members are regularly eating and sleeping in the aldeia at the time of the operation). In addition,

Hungary, Czechia, Poland, and Portugal were the countries in Europe where house prices increased the most between 2015 and 2024. The EMF house price index for all four countries measured more than 200 index points, indicating that home prices more than doubled since 2015 — the base year. Property prices are tightly connected with the supply of new homes. France, Poland, and Denmark are some of the countries with the most dwellings completed per 1,000 citizens in Europe.

Abstract

In 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the six republics in former Yugoslavia, became an independent nation. A civil war started soon thereafter, lasting until 1995 and causing widespread destruction and losses of lives. Following the Dayton accord, BosniaHerzegovina (BiH) emerged as an independent state comprised of two entities, namely, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srpska (RS), and the district of Brcko. In addition to the destruction caused to the physical infrastructure, there was considerable social disruption and decline in living standards for a large section of the population. Along side these events, a period of economic transition to a market economy was occurring. The distributive impacts of this transition, both positive and negative, are unknown. In short, while it is clear that welfare levels have changed, there is very little information on poverty and social indicators on which to base policies and programs.

In the post-war process of rebuilding the economic and social base of the country, the government has faced the problems created by having little relevant data at the household level. The three statistical organizations in the country (State Agency for Statistics for BiH –BHAS, the RS Institute of Statistics-RSIS, and the FBiH Institute of Statistics-FIS) have been active in working to improve the data available to policy makers: both at the macro and the household level. One facet of their activities is to design and implement a series of household series. The first of these surveys is the Living Standards Measurement Study survey (LSMS). Later surveys will include the Household Budget Survey (an Income and Expenditure Survey) and a Labor Force Survey. A subset of the LSMS households will be re-interviewed in the two years following the LSMS to create a panel data set.

The three statistical organizations began work on the design of the Living Standards Measurement Study Survey (LSMS) in 1999. The purpose of the survey was to collect data needed for assessing the living standards of the population and for providing the key indicators needed for social and economic policy formulation. The survey was to provide data at the country and the entity level and to allow valid comparisons between entities to be made.

The LSMS survey was carried out in the Fall of 2001 by the three statistical organizations with financial and technical support from the Department for International Development of the British Government (DfID), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Japanese Government, and the World Bank (WB). The creation of a Master Sample for the survey was supported by the Swedish Government through SIDA, the European Commission, the Department for International Development of the British Government and the World Bank.

The overall management of the project was carried out by the Steering Board, comprised of the Directors of the RS and FBiH Statistical Institutes, the Management Board of the State Agency for Statistics and representatives from DfID, UNDP and the WB. The day-to-day project activities were carried out by the Survey Mangement Team, made up of two professionals from each of the three statistical organizations.

The Living Standard Measurement Survey LSMS, in addition to collecting the information necessary to obtain a comprehensive as possible measure of the basic dimensions of household living standards, has three basic objectives, as follows:

1. To provide the public sector, government, the business community, scientific institutions, international donor organizations and social organizations with information on different indicators of the population’s living conditions, as well as on available resources for satisfying basic needs.

2. To provide information for the evaluation of the results of different forms of government policy and programs developed with the aim to improve the population’s living standard. The survey will enable the analysis of the relations between and among different aspects of living standards (housing, consumption, education, health, labor) at a given time, as well as within a household.

3. To provide key contributions for development of government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, based on analyzed data.

Geographic coverage

National coverage. Domains: Urban/rural/mixed; Federation; Republic

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

A total sample of 5,400 households was determined to be adequate for the needs of the survey: with 2,400 in the Republika Srpska and 3,000 in the Federation of BiH. The difficulty was in selecting a probability sample that would be representative of the country's population. The sample design for any survey depends upon the availability of information on the universe of households and individuals in the country. Usually this comes from a census or administrative records. In the case of BiH the most recent census was done in 1991. The data from this census were rendered obsolete due to both the simple passage of time but, more importantly, due to the massive population displacements that occurred during the war.

At the initial stages of this project it was decided that a master sample should be constructed. Experts from Statistics Sweden developed the plan for the master sample and provided the procedures for its construction. From this master sample, the households for the LSMS were selected.

Master Sample [This section is based on Peter Lynn's note "LSMS Sample Design and Weighting - Summary". April, 2002. Essex University, commissioned by DfID.]

The master sample is based on a selection of municipalities and a full enumeration of the selected municipalities. Optimally, one would prefer smaller units (geographic or administrative) than municipalities. However, while it was considered that the population estimates of municipalities were reasonably accurate, this was not the case for smaller geographic or administrative areas. To avoid the error involved in sampling smaller areas with very uncertain population estimates, municipalities were used as the base unit for the master sample.

The Statistics Sweden team proposed two options based on this same method, with the only difference being in the number of municipalities included and enumerated. For reasons of funding, the smaller option proposed by the team was used, or Option B.

Stratification of Municipalities

The first step in creating the Master Sample was to group the 146 municipalities in the country into three strata- Urban, Rural and Mixed - within each of the two entities. Urban municipalities are those where 65 percent or more of the households are considered to be urban, and rural municipalities are those where the proportion of urban households is below 35 percent. The remaining municipalities were classified as Mixed (Urban and Rural) Municipalities. Brcko was excluded from the sampling frame.

Urban, Rural and Mixed Municipalities: It is worth noting that the urban-rural definitions used in BiH are unusual with such large administrative units as municipalities classified as if they were completely homogeneous. Their classification into urban, rural, mixed comes from the 1991 Census which used the predominant type of income of households in the municipality to define the municipality. This definition is imperfect in two ways. First, the distribution of income sources may have changed dramatically from the pre-war times: populations have shifted, large industries have closed and much agricultural land remains unusable due to the presence of land mines. Second, the definition is not comparable to other countries' where villages, towns and cities are classified by population size into rural or urban or by types of services and infrastructure available. Clearly, the types of communities within a municipality vary substantially in terms of both population and infrastructure.

However, these imperfections are not detrimental to the sample design (the urban/rural definition may not be very useful for analysis purposes, but that is a separate issue). [Note: It may be noted that the percent of LSMS households in each stratum reporting using agricultural land or having livestock is highest in the "rural" municipalities and lowest in the "urban" municipalities. However, the concentration of agricultural households is higher in RS, so the municipality types are not comparable across entities. The percent reporting no land or livestock in RS was 74.7% in "urban" municipalities, 43.4% in "mixed" municipalities and 31.2% in "rural" municipalities. Respective figures for FbiH were 88.7%, 60.4% and 40.0%.]

The classification is used simply for stratification. The stratification is likely to have some small impact on the variance of survey estimates, but it does not introduce any bias.

Selection of Municipalities

Option B of the Master Sample involved sampling municipalities independently from each of the six strata described in the previous section. Municipalities were selected with probability proportional to estimated population size (PPES) within each stratum, so as to select approximately 50% of the mostly urban municipalities, 20% of the mixed and 10% of the mostly rural ones. Overall, 25 municipalities were selected (out of 146) with 14 in the FbiH and 11 in the RS. The distribution of selected municipalities over the sampling strata is shown below.

Stratum / Total municipalities Mi / Sampled municipalities mi 1. Federation, mostly urban / 10 / 5 2. Federation, mostly mixed / 26 / 4 3. Federation, mostly rural / 48 / 5 4. RS, mostly urban /4 / 2 5. RS, mostly mixed /29 / 5 6. RS, mostly rural / 29 / 4

Note: Mi is the total number of municipalities in stratum i (i=1, … , 6); mi is the number of municipalities selected from stratum

In 2025, Luxembourg was the country with the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. Of the 20 listed countries, 13 are in Europe and five are in Asia, alongside the U.S. and Australia. There are no African or Latin American countries among the top 20. Correlation with high living standards While GDP is a useful indicator for measuring the size or strength of an economy, GDP per capita is much more reflective of living standards. For example, when compared to life expectancy or indices such as the Human Development Index or the World Happiness Report, there is a strong overlap - 14 of the 20 countries on this list are also ranked among the 20 happiest countries in 2024, and all 20 have "very high" HDIs. Misleading metrics? GDP per capita figures, however, can be misleading, and to paint a fuller picture of a country's living standards then one must look at multiple metrics. GDP per capita figures can be skewed by inequalities in wealth distribution, and in countries such as those in the Middle East, a relatively large share of the population lives in poverty while a smaller number live affluent lifestyles.

The average for 2021 based on 41 countries was 107.05 index points. The highest value was in Switzerland: 211.98 index points and the lowest value was in Belarus: 40.99 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Abstract

The first Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS) was conducted in 1992-93 by the State Planning Committee (SPC) (now Ministry of Planning and Investment) along with the General Statistical Office (GSO). The second VLSS was conducted by the GSO in 1997-98. Both VLSS surveys were funded by UNDP and Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). The survey was part of the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) household surveys conducted in a number of developing countries with technical assistance from the World Bank.

The second VLSS was designed to provide an up-to-date source of data on households to be used in policy design, monitoring of living standards and evaluation of policies and programs. The timing of the second VLSS approximately five years after the first allows analysis of medium term trends in living standards as a large part of the questionnaire is the same in both surveys.

In addition to the purpose of obtaining a comprehensive and comparable data set to the 1992-93 VLSS for policy analysis, the survey also served as a medium for training and improving survey methods and analysis within the General Statistical Office of Vietnam (GSO), the agency in charge of designing and implementing the second round of the VLSS as well as other government agencies involved in social statistics.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

• Households
• Individuals
• Community
• Schools
• Health Centers

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The survey sample was selected to be representative for the whole country, taking into account available funding, geographical conditions, organizational capacity and staff competence. The sample size was set at 6000 households selected from provinces and cities throughout the country, but excluding islands due to logistical difficulties in traveling and conducting the survey in those locations.

The sample for the 1997-1998 VLSS was primarily selected from the households selected in the original 150 communes/wards of the 1992-1993 VLSS. The sample was increased by 1200 households with these additional households obtained from the sample of the Multi-purpose Household survey (MPHS) which was based on a similar sampling methodology. Replacement households were selected randomly from within the clusters of the survey and used where necessary.

The selection of the original sample of 4800 households from VLSS 1992-1993 followed a method of stratified random cluster sampling. The basic sample frame was obtained from the 1989 Population Census. The sampling procedures took into account that communes or wards are the basic local level administrative unit, and each commune/ward has a number of villages or urban residential blocks. The number of households selected in a given cluster was determined primarily based on the requirements for organization of interview teams and time needed for each household interview on location.

Based on the sampling frame including two lists, list of communes and list of wards (or equivalent administrative units) throughout the country with the number of households in each commune/ward obtained from the 1989 Population Census, the sample of the 1992-1993 VLSS was selected in three steps, independently for urban and rural areas:

Step 1: Random selection of 120 communes and 30 wards throughout the country based on the method of probability proportional to the number of households in those villages or wards. The selection of primary sampling units (communes) was stratified by urban and rural areas based on the results of the 1989 Census that 80% of the population was living in rural areas and 20% in urban areas.

Step 2: Within each selected commune, two villages or urban residential blocks were selected randomly by the method of probability proportional to the number of households as in the first stage of sampling. Thus, 240 villages and 60 residential blocks were selected.

Step 3: Within each selected village or residential block, 20 households were randomly selected by systematic method with equal probability, including 16 official and 4 alternate households. To eliminate the effect of the seasonal differences, the rotation method of sample was adopted: the 6000 surveyed households were divided into 10 sub-samples and each sub-sample was surveyed for one month.

Sampling procedure is explained in details in the document called "Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS), 1997-98", available in this documentation.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The second round of the VLSS used 5 questionnaires: household, commune, price, school and clinic. - Household Questionnaire: The household questionnaire contains 15 sections each of which covered a separate aspect of household activity.

• Commune/Ward Questionnaire: A completely new commune questionnaire was developed for the 1997-98 VLSS survey with a greatly expanded content. A few questions in the 1992-93 questionnaire were dropped or moved to other questionnaires (see below). The commune questionnaire was administered by the team supervisor and completed with the help of village chiefs, teachers, government officials and health care workers. The questionnaire was administered only in rural and minor urban areas, i.e. communes 37 to 194, corresponding to villages 73 to 388. Some sections of the questionnaire contain village/block level information, while most of the commune questionnaire refers to the commune. The commune questionnaire contains 10 sections.

• Price Questionnaire: Price data were collected in all clusters, both urban and rural by the anthropometrist for 36 food items, 33 non-food items, 6 services, 10 pharmaceutical products, and 7 agricultural inputs. Three separate observations were made and these did not necessarily involve actual purchase. However, it is possible that as the anthropometrist is not a local person, the prices quoted are not the true prices of the locality. This information was utilized in checking unit prices in the consumption modules, and for calculating poverty lines. Price indices utilized for adjusting monetary figures to real values were obtained from the GSO CPI unit. Details on how and where prices were to be collected can be found in the anthropometry manual. The actual locations of price collection were recorded in the questionnaires, but unfortunately not entered in the computer files.

• School Questionnaire: The school questionnaires were implemented by the team supervisor to all schools within the two villages selected within a commune. There are between 1 and 7 school questionnaires filled in per commune.

• Commune Health Station Questionnaire: The commune health station questionnaire was implemented by the team supervisor. The respondent could be the director, doctor or physician’s assistant of the health station.

Response rate

Response rates are shown in details in the document called "Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS), 1997-98 Basic Information", available in this documentation.

This statistic depicts the human development index (HDI) scoring of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 2019, by country. In that year, the United Arab Emirates achieved a score of ****, which ranked them among the countries with very high human development. All GCC countries, with an exception of Oman, have been ranked as having very high human development countries.

According to the survey, as of February 2023, four out of the six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council ranked amongst the top ** in the world for expatriate quality of life. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates topped the list for quality of life, whereas Saudi Arabia and Kuwait came last in the region. Quality of life; an amalgamation of many metrics Since quality of life is dependent on many indicators, it can give us a good insight into many aspects of state welfare policies and services. Saudi Arabia, where the number of foreign workers in the private sector topped *** million, also ranked as having one of the region's lowest quality of life for expatriates. Qatar, which had the second-highest quality of life for expatriates living in the GCC, was ranked as one of the most challenging countries in the region for ease of settling in. The UAE and Qatar, both of which ranked the highest in the survey, also have the highest average salaries and living standards in the region. Foreign workers are a key pillar of the GCC economy Countries in the GCC all have sizable expatriate populations for which their economies are heavily reliant. Roughly ********** of the workforce in the GCC is foreign. Although the share of foreign workers in the GCC has slightly decreased in recent years, they still considerably outweigh the local workforce. Most of these workers comprise the unskilled portion of the occupational category in the GCC. However, with diversifying investments and programs such as Vision 2030, countries have seen a rise in the number of skilled foreign workers.

Abstract

Timor-Leste experienced a fundamental social and economic upheaval after its people voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum in August 1999. Population was displaced, and public and private infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable. Soon after the violence ceased, the country began rebuilding itself with the support from UN agencies, the international donor community and NGOs. The government laid out a National Development Plan (NDP) with two central goals: to promote rapid, equitable and sustainable economic growth and to reduce poverty. Formulating a national plan and poverty reduction strategy required data on poverty and living standards, and given the profound changes experienced, new data collection had to be undertaken to accurately assess the living conditions in the country. The Planning Commission of the Timor-Leste Transitional Authority undertook a Poverty Assessment Project along with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This project comprised three data collection activities on different aspects of living standards, which taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of well-being in Timor-Leste. The first component was the Suco Survey, which is a census of all 498 sucos (villages) in the country. It provides an inventory of existing social and physical infrastructure and of the economic characteristics of each suco, in addition to aldeia (hamlet) level population figures. It was carried out between February and April 2001. A second element was the Timor-Leste Living Standards Measurement Survey (TLSS). This is a household survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 families from 100 sucos. It was designed to diagnose the extent, nature and causes of poverty, and to analyse policy options facing the country. It assembles comprehensive information on household demographics, housing and assets, household expenditures and some components of income, agriculture, labor market data, basic health and education, subjective perceptions of poverty and social capital. Data collection was undertaken between end August and November 2001. The final component was the Participatory Potential Assessment (PPA), which is a qualitative community survey in 48 aldeias in the 13 districts of the country to take stock of their assets, skills and strengths, identify the main challenges and priorities, and formulate strategies for tackling these within their communities. It was completed between November 2001 and January 2002.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Households

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

SAMPLE SIZE AND ANALYTIC DOMAINS

A survey relies on identifying a subgroup of a population that is representative both for the underlying population and for specific analytical domains of interest. The main objective of the TLSS is to derive a poverty profile for the country and salient population groups. The fundamental analytic domains identified are the Major Urban Centers (Dili and Baucau), the Other Urban Centers and the Rural Areas. The survey represents certain important sub-divisions of the Rural Areas, namely two major agro-ecologic zones (Lowlands and Highlands) and three broad geographic regions (West, Center and East). In addition to these domains, we can separate landlocked sucos (Inland) from those with sea access (Coast), and generate categories merging rural and urban strata along the geographic, altitude, and sea access dimensions. However, the TLSS does not provide detailed indicators for narrow geographic areas, such as postos or even districts. [Note: Timor-Leste is divided into 13 major units called districts. These are further subdivided into 67 postos (subdistricts), 498 sucos (villages) and 2,336 aldeias (sub-villages). The administrative structure is uniform throughout the country, including rural and urban areas.] The survey has a sample size of 1,800 households, or about one percent of the total number of households in Timor-Leste. The experience of Living Standards Measurement Surveys in many countries - most of them substantially larger than Timor-Leste - has shown that samples of that size are sufficient for the requirements of a poverty assessment. The survey domains were defined as follows. The Urban Area is divided into the Major Urban Centers (the 31 sucos in Dili and the 6 sucos in Baucau) and the Other Urban Centers (the remaining 34 urban sucos outside Dili and Baucau). The rest of the country (427 sucos in total) comprises the Rural Area. The grouping of sucos into urban and rural areas is based on the Indonesian classification. In addition, we separated rural sucos both by agro-ecological zones and geographic areas. With the help of the Geographic Information System developed at the Department of Agriculture, sucos were subsequently qualified as belonging to the Highlands or the Lowlands depending on the share of their surface above and below the 500 m level curve. The three westernmost districts (Oecussi, Bobonaro and Cova Lima) constitute the Western Region, the three easternmost districts (Baucau, Lautem and Viqueque) the Eastern Region, and the remaining seven districts (Aileu, Ainaro, Dili, Ermera, Liquica, Manufahi and Manatuto) belong to the Central Region.

SAMPLING STRATA AND SAMPLE ALLOCATION

Our next step was to ensure that each analytical domain contained a sufficient number of households. Assuming a uniform sampling fraction of approximately 1/100, a non-stratified 1,800-household sample would contain around 240 Major Urban households and 170 Other Urban households -too few to sustain representative and significant analyses. We therefore stratified the sample to separate the two urban areas from the rural areas. The rural strata were large enough so that its implicit stratification along agro-ecological and geographical dimensions was sufficient to ensure that these dimensions were represented proportionally to their share of the population. The final sample design by strata was as follows: 450 households in the Major Urban Centers (378 in Dili and 72 in Baucau), 252 households in the Other Urban Centers and 1,098 households in the Rural Areas.

SAMPLING STRATEGY

The sampling of households in each stratum, with the exception of Urban Dili, followed a 3-stage procedure. In the first stage, a certain number of sucos were selected with probability proportional to size (PPS). Hence 4 sucos were selected in Urban Baucau, 14 in Other Urban Centers and 61 in the Rural Areas. In the second stage, 3 aldeias in each suco were selected, again with probability proportional to size (PPS). In the third stage, 6 households were selected in each aldeia with equal probability (EP). This implies that the sample is approximately selfweighted within the stratum: all households in the stratum had the same chance of being visited by the survey. A simpler and more efficient 2-stage process was used for Urban Dili. In the first stage, 63 aldeias were selected with PPS and in the second stage 6 households with equal probability in each aldeia (for a total sample of 378 households). This procedure reduces sampling errors since the sample will be spread more than with the standard 3-stage process, but it can only be applied to Urban Dili as only there it was possible to sort the selected aldeias into groups of 3 aldeias located in close proximity of each other.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Cleaning operations

1. DATA ENTRY

A decentralized approach to data entry was adopted in Timor-Leste. Data entry proceeded side by side with data gathering with the help of laptops to ensure verification and correction in the field. The purpose of this procedure was twofold. First, it reduced the time of data processing because it was not necessary to send the questionnaires to the central office to be entered. More important, data were available for analysis very soon after the fieldwork was completed. And second, it allowed for immediate and extensive checks on data quality. Any inconsistency revealed at this stage was to be rectified by revisiting the households while still being in the village, and so, the need for later data editing was minimized. A second round of standard checks on data quality was also implemented in the project office in Dili upon retrieval of the data from the field teams. In general, with a few exceptions, the analysis has confirmed the high quality of the data entry and validation processes. The data entry program was designed to check for data entry errors, coding mistakes, as well as to search for incomplete or inaccurate data collection. It was based upon two major types of checks.

1. CHECKS

On the one hand, standard value-range checks were included. If the data entry operator entered data, which was outside the bounds of the programmed range, either because the number was not a pre-coded one or because it was extremely unlikely, the program would alert him. On the other hand, it also contained a series of checks to ensure that the data collected were internally consistent. The skip program used in the questionnaire was programmed into the data entry software to ensure that the information entered was consistent to the desired skip pattern. For instance, if the code “3” was entered by mistake in a question where the only valid responses were “1” or “2”, the program would alert the operator. Similarly, if the household reported having purchased a particular good, the program would check to see if information on quantities and expenditure was also reported. However, if the data entered into the

Abstract

Over the past decade, Albania has been seeking to develop the framework for a market economy and more open society. It has faced severe internal and external challenges in the interim - extremely low income levels and a lack of basic infrastructure, the rapid collapse of output and inflation rise after the shift in regime in 1991, the turmoil during the 1997 pyramid crisis, and the social and economic shocks accompanying the 1999 Kosovo crisis. In the face of these challenges, Albania has made notable progress in creating conditions conducive to growth and poverty reduction. A poverty profile based on 1996 data (the most recent available) showed that some 30 percent of the rural and some 15 percent of the urban population are poor, with many others vulnerable to poverty due to their incomes being close to the poverty threshold. Income related poverty is compounded by the severe lack of access to basic infrastructure, education and health services, clean water, etc., and the ability of the Government to address these issues is complicated by high levels of internal and external migration that are not well understood. To date, the paucity of household-level information has been a constraining factor in the design, implementation and evaluation of economic and social programs in Albania. Multi-purpose household surveys are one of the main sources of information to determine living conditions and measure the poverty situation of a country and provide an indispensable tool to assist policymakers in monitoring and targeting social programs. Two recent surveys carried out by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) - the 1998 Living Conditions Survey (LCS) and the 2000 Household Budget Survey (HBS) - drew attention, once again, to the need for accurately measuring household welfare according to well accepted standards, and for monitoring these trends on a regular basis. In spite of their narrow scope and limitations, these two surveys have provided the country with an invaluable training ground towards the development of a permanent household survey system to support the government strategic planning in its fight against poverty. In the process leading to its first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP; also known in Albania as Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, GPRS), the Government of Albania reinforced its commitment to strengthening its own capacity to collect and analyse on a regular basis the information it needs to inform policy-making. In its first phase (2001-2006), this monitoring system will include the following data collection instruments:

(i) Population and Housing Census (ii) Living Standards Measurement Surveys every 3 years (iii) annual panel surveys.

The Population and Housing Census (PHC) conducted in April 2001, provided the country with a much needed updated sampling frame which is one of the building blocks for the household survey structure. The focus during this first phase of the monitoring system is on a periodic LSMS (in 2002 and 2005), followed by panel surveys on a sub-sample of LSMS households (in 2003, 2004 and 2006), drawing heavily on the 2001 census information. The possibility to include a panel component in the second LSMS will be considered at a later stage, based on the experience accumulated with the first panels. The 2002 LSMS was in the field between April and early July, with some field activities (the community and price questionnaires) extending into August and September. The survey work was undertaken by the Living Standards unit of INSTAT, with the technical assistance of the World Bank. The present document provides detailed information on this survey. Section II summarizes the content of the survey instruments used. Section III focuses on the details of the sample design. Sections IV describes the pilot test and fieldwork procedures of the survey, as well as the training received by survey staff. Section V reviews data entry and data cleaning issues. Finally, section VI contains a series of annotations that all those interested in using the data should read.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

Households

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

(a) SAMPLING FRAME

The Republic of Albania is divided geographically into 12 Prefectures (Prefekturat). The latter are divided into Districts (Rrethet) which are, in turn, divided into Cities (Qyteti) and Communes (Komunat). The Communes contain all the rural villages and the very small cities. For the April 2001 General Census of Population and Housing census purposes, the cities and the villages were divided into Enumeration Areas (EAs). These formed the basis for the LSMS sampling frame. The EAs in the frame are classified by Prefecture, District, City or Commune. The frame also contains, for every EA, the number of Housing Units (HUs), the number of occupied HUs, the number of unoccupied HUs, and the number of households. Occupied dwellings rather than total number of dwellings were used since many census EAs contain a large number of empty dwellings. The Housing Unit (defined as the space occupied by one household) was taken as the sampling unit, instead of the household, because the HU is more permanent and easier to identify in the field. A detailed review of the list of censuses EAs shows that many have zero population. In order to obtain EAs with a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 120 occupied housing units, the EAs with zero population were first removed from the sampling frame. Then, the smallest EAs (with less than 50 HU) were collapsed with geographically adjacent ones and the largest EAs (with more than 120 HU) were split into two or more EAs. Subsequently, maps identifying the boundaries of every split and collapsed EA were prepared Sample Size and Implementation Since the 2002 LSMS had been conducted about a year after the April 2001 census, a listing operation to update the sample EAs was not conducted. However, given the rapid speed at which new constructions and demolitions of buildings take place in the city of Tirana and its suburbs, a quick count of the 75 sample EAs was carried out followed by a listing operation. The listing sheets prepared during the listing operation became the sampling frame for the final stage of selection. The final sample design for the 2002 LSMS included 450 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) and 8 households in each PSU, for a total of 3600 households. Four reserve units were selected in each sample PSU to act as replacement unit in non-response cases. In a few cases in which the rate of migration was particularly high and more than four of the originally selected households could not be found for the interview, additional households for the same PSU were randomly selected. During the implementation of the survey there was a problem with the management of the questionnaires for a household that had initially refused, but later accepted, to fill in the food diary. The original household questionnaire was lost in the process and it was not possible to match the diary with a valid household questionnaire. The household had therefore to be dropped from the sample (this happened in Shkoder, PSU 16). The final sample size is therefore of 3599 households.

(b) STRATIFICATION

The sampling frame was divided in four regions (strata), Coastal Area, Central Area, and Mountain Area, and Tirana (urban and other urban). These four strata were further divided into major cities, other urban, and other rural. The EAs were selected proportionately to the number of housing units in these areas. In the city of Tirana and its suburbs, implicit stratification was used to improve the efficiency of the sample design. The implicit stratification was performed by ordering the EAs in the sampling frame in a geographic serpentine fashion within each stratum used for the independent selection of EAs.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Cleaning operations

(a) QUALITY CHECKS Besides the checks built-in in the DE program and those performed on the preliminary versions of the dataset as it was building up, and additional round of in depth checks on the household questionnaire and the food diary was performed in late September and early October in Tirana. Wherever possible data entry errors or inconsistencies in the dataset were spotted, the original questionnaires or diary were retrieved, and the information contained therein checked. Changes were made to the August version of the dataset as needed and the dataset was finalized in October.

(b) DATA ENTRY Data Entry Operations Data entry for all the survey instruments was performed using custom made applications developed in CS-Pro. Data entry for the household questionnaire was performed in a decentralized fashion in parallel with the enumeration, so as to allow for 'real-time' checking of the data collected. This allowed a further tier of quality control checks on the data. Where errors in the data were spotted during data entry, it was possible to instruct enumerators and supervisors to correct the information, if necessary, revisiting the household, when the teams were still in the field. A further round of checks was performed by the core team in Tirana and Bank staff in Washington as the data were gathered from the field and the entire dataset started building up. All but one of the 16 teams in the districts had one DEO, the Fier team had two, and there were four DEO's for Tirana. Each DEO worked with a laptop computer, and was given office space in the regional Statistics Offices, or in INSTAT headquarters for the Tirana teams. The DEO's received Part 1 of the household questionnaire from the supervisor once the supervisor had checked the enumerator's work, within two

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth; which is embedded in the European Commission’s Priorities under the European Green Deal, Economy that works for people. SDG 8 recognises the importance of sustained economic growth and high levels of economic productivity for the creation of well-paid quality jobs and the achievement of global prosperity. That said, it envisions inclusive and sustainable economic growth, which leaves no one behind and does not harm the environment.

Indicator can be considered as identical to global SDG indicator 8.1.1 "Annual growth rate of real GDP per capita". Furthermore, it is part of the impact indicators for Strategic plan 2020-2024 referring to the 6 Commission priorities.

The EU supports growth, job creation and competitiveness through funding instrumentssuch as the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the European Social Fund and its successor, the European Social Fund Plus, the European Structural and Investment Funds, Horizon 2020, the Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), the Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME), the Emergency Support Instrument, the Connecting Europe Facility and the Creative Europe Programme (CAP).

The indicator is calculated as the ratio of real GDP to the average population of a specific year. GDP measures the value of total final output of goods and services produced by an economy within a certain period of time. It includes goods and services that have markets (or which could have markets) and products which are produced by general government and non-profit institutions.

It is a measure of economic activity and is commonly used as a proxy for the development in a country’s material living standards. However, it is not a complete measure of economic welfare. For example, GDP does not include most unpaid household work. Neither does GDP take account of negative effects of economic activity, like environmental degradation.

Real GDP per capita is calculated as the ratio of real GDP to the average population of a specific year and is based on rounded figures.

All EU MS

Comparability across all EU Member States respectively other presented countries is ensured by the application of the legal framework represented by ESA 2010 and SNA 2008. Comparability of GDP for EU countries is regularly monitored in the context of the work of the Gross National Income (GNI) Committee. In addition, international harmonisation of techniques and, to some extent, compilation tools is ensured by the work of the national accounts working groups (Eurostat, OECD, UN).

Comparability across countries of the population figures is ensured by application of the same concept (ESA 2010) across countries.

Abstract

In the implementation of the Party and State policy “Doi moi”, the General Statistical Office (GSO) has conducted many household living standards surveys to collect information on the living standards of all social societies to serve policy-making and socio-economic development planning. From 2002 to 2010, LSS are to be conducted (in every two- year) to monitor systematically the living standard of Vietnam's societies and at the same time, to exercise the monitoring and assessment of the implementation of the Comprehensive Poverty Alleviation and Growth Strategy defined in Country Strategy Paper approved by the Government Prime Minister. In addition, these surveys also serve the evaluation of realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Socio-economic Development Goals set out by Vietnamese Government. The 2002 LSS included all the keynote contents reflecting the living standards of the population and the basic socio-economic condition of communes/wards that might affect the living standards of the local people. As regards households, it collected data in relation to demographic characteristics of the household members, the education background, professional/ technical level of each member, income, expenditures, use of medical facilities of all kinds, employment, housing and amenity as possession, personal effects, utilities (power and water supply), sanitation and participation in the poverty alleviation programme. As regards communes/wards, it collected a wide range of information related to demography, nationality, infrastructure, farming, production promotion conditions, non-farming activity and law and order.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

Households

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Vietnam household living standard survey 2002 was selected, based on the Population and Housing Census 1999. The sample size included 75,000 household's representative of the whole country, urban and rural area and 61 provinces. Survey samples were sub-divided into 4 minor samples for the quarterly surveys in 2002 for more thorough data collection in anticipation of the harvests that might somehow get in the way. Survey sample were designed by 2 samples: one big sample (45,000 households) which mostly concentrated on income of households to assess living standard for national, regional and provincial levels ; one smaller sample (30,000 households) with both information about income and expenditure to evaluate intensive living standard at central and provincial levels. Following are detail contents:

• Implementing survey in 2002 with income and expenditure questionnaire of 30,000 household sample (Income and expenditure survey). This sample was divided into 4 smaller ones, with 7,500 households of each which conducted in first month of four quarters in 2002 respectively. The 30,000 household sample showed estimations at national and regional levels for 2001-2002.
• In the first six months of 2002, survey was implemented on all sections, except for expenditure section (in Income and expenditure survey) for 45,000 household sample (Income survey). This sample was divided into 2 small samples with 22,500 households of each and conducted in quarter I, II/2002 respectively. Survey of 45,000 household sample combined with 15,000 households of Income and expenditure survey (30,000 household sample) which conducted in the first month in quarter I, II/2002 to establish one 60,000 household sample that showed estimations for national, regional and provincial levels for 2001.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is a crucial economic indicator that represents the average economic output per person in a given country or region. It is calculated by dividing the total GDP by the population size. This metric is often used to compare the economic performance of different countries and assess the relative prosperity of their citizens. Two commonly used versions of this indicator are GDP per capita at current prices and GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). GDP per capita at current prices reflects the total economic output of a country divided by its population, using the market prices of goods and services at the time of measurement. This metric provides a snapshot of the economic activity within a country without adjusting for inflation or differences in the cost of living across regions. Global GDP per capita at current prices (PPP) provides a measure of the average economic output per person, adjusted for the differences in the cost of living between countries. This adjustment allows for a more accurate comparison of living standards and economic productivity across different nations.

Real wages in the Eurozone showed a negative trend for the second year in a row, as high inflation caused the real value of wages to decline by almost one percent. Real wage growth is measured by adjusting nominal wage growth - that is, the growth of wages in monetary values - for inflation, or changes in the average price of the basket of goods. This means that in 2023, a worker would be able to buy one percent less than they would have in 2022, assuming their wages grew by the 4.5 percent nominal wage growth which was seen across the Eurozone in 2023.

Over the past decade, Albania has been seeking to develop the framework for a market economy and more open society. It has faced severe internal and external challenges in the interim – extremely low income levels and a lack of basic infrastructure, the rapid collapse of output and inflation rise after the shift in regime in 1991, the turmoil during the 1997 pyramid crisis, and the social and economic shocks accompanying the 1999 Kosovo crisis. In the face of these challenges, Albania has made notable progress in creating conditions conducive to growth and poverty reduction. A poverty profile based on 1996 data (the most recent available) showed that some 30 percent of the rural and some 15 percent of the urban population are poor, with many others vulnerable to poverty due to their incomes being close to the poverty threshold. Income related poverty is compounded by the severe lack of access to basic infrastructure, education and health services, clean water, etc., and the ability of the Government to address these issues is complicated by high levels of internal and external migration that are not well understood. To date, the paucity of household-level information has been a constraining factor in the design, implementation and evaluation of economic and social programs in Albania. Multi-purpose household surveys are one of the main sources of information to determine living conditions and measure the poverty situation of a country, and provide an indispensable tool to assist policymakers in monitoring and targeting social programs. Two recent surveys carried out by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) – the 1998 Living Conditions Survey (LCS) and the 2000 Household Budget Survey (HBS) – drew attention, once again, to the need for accurately measuring household welfare according to wellaccepted standards, and for monitoring these trends on a regular basis. In spite of their narrow scope and limitations, these two surveys have provided the country with an invaluable training ground towards the development of a permanent household survey system to support the government strategic planning in its fight against poverty. In the process leading to its first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP; also known in Albania as Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, GPRS), the Government of Albania reinforced its commitment to strengthening its own capacity to collect and analyze on a regular basis the information it needs to inform policy-making. In its first phase (2001-2006), this monitoring system will include the following data collection instruments: (i) Population and Housing Census; (ii) Living Standards Measurement Surveys every 3 years, and (iii) annual panel surveys. The Population and Housing Census (PHC) conducted in April 2001, provided the country with a much needed updated sampling frame which is one of the building blocks for the household survey structure. The focus during this first phase of the monitoring system is on a periodic LSMS (in 2002 and 2005), followed by panel surveys on a sub-sample of LSMS households (in 2003, 2004 and 2006), drawing heavily on the 2001 census information. The possibility to include a panel component in the second LSMS will be considered at a later stage, based on the experience accumulated with the first panels. The 2002 LSMS was in the field between April and early July, with some field activities (the community and price questionnaires) extending into August and September. The survey work was undertaken by the Living Standards unit of INSTAT, with the technical assistance of the World Bank. The present document provides detailed information on this survey. Section II summarizes the content of the survey instruments used. Section III focuses on the details of the sample design. Sections IV describes the pilot test and fieldwork procedures of the survey, as well as the training received by survey staff. Section V reviews data entry and data cleaning issues. Finally, section VI contains a series of annotations that all those interested in using the data should read.

Table showing the country rankings based in the different metrics analysed

In 2023, Hungary reached a moderate quality of life index, scoring 132.13 points. From all the aspects of living taken into consideration, the low purchasing power and the high property price-to-income ratio were the least favorable.

Digital Quality of Life

Besides the Quality of Life Index, the Digital Quality of Life Index also plays an important role: measuring the country’s level and quality of digitalization. Levels of e-security, e-infrastructure, e-government, internet quality, and internet affordability are compared. The country’s e-security index totaled the highest with 0.84 points out of one, while e-infrastructure followed closely with 0.82 points. By contrast, Hungarian internet affordability reached only 0.1 index points out of one.

Happiness as an indicator

Happiness is a factor that is influenced by the quality of life. GDP, social support, life expectancy, and freedom are among the factors that influence one’s perceived happiness. In 2022, many countries that score highest on the list of happiest countries worldwide are Nordic countries such as Finland (7.8) and Denmark (7.59) but others, like Israel (7.47) and the Netherlands (7.4) are also high on the list. Out of CEE countries, Czechia scores the highest with 6.85 out of 10 points.