1. Numerous examples might be cited, including Ben-Chieh Liu, Quality of Life Indicators in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: A Statistical Analysis (N.Y.: Praeger, 1976); Karl A. Fox, Social System Accounts: Linking Social and Economic Indicators through Tangible Behavior Settings (Boston: D. Reidel, 1985); and F. Thomas Juster and Kenneth C. Land (eds.), Social Accounting Systems — Essays on the State of the Art (N.Y.: Academic Press, 1981). Also noteworthy in this regard is I. P. David and D. S. Maligalig, Multivariate Statistical and Graphical Classification Techniques Applied to the Problem of Grouping Countries, Manila, Asian Development Bank, Report No. 2, March 1985. Multivariate analysis has become a common technique in reducing large and complex data sets to a variety of “composite” indices. Two recent examples are Krzyszt of Zagórski, ‘Composite measures of social, economic and demographic regional differentiation in Australia’, Social Indicators Research, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Feb. 1985), 131–156, and Jan Seién, ‘Multidimensional descriptions of social indicators’, Social Indicators Research, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Nov. 1985), 435–445.
2. Otis Dudley Duncan, Notes on Social Measurement (N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984), 231ff.
3. Ibid., p. 233. Compare Robert J. Rossi and Kevin J. Gilmartin, The Handbook of Social Indicators: Sources, Characteristics, and Analysis (N.Y. & London: Garland STPM Press, 1980), chapter 7, pp. 104–109).
4. Naomi Bailin Wish, ‘Are We Really Measuring the Quality of Life?’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Jan. 1986), 93–99.
5. The underlying rationale for descriptive constructs of this kind is that they can serve a useful social reporting function, despite their inability to satisfy the scientific objectives of explanation or prediction. However, a number of research efforts have sought to combine some explanatory capability with social reporting. Outstanding examples include Frank M. Andrews and Stephen B. Withey, ‘Developing measures of perceived life quality: Results from several national surveys’, Social Indicators Research 1:1 (May 1974), 1–26; Wolfgang Zapf, ‘Applied social reporting: A social indicators system for West German Society’, Social Indicators Research 6:4 (October 1979), 397–419; and the contributions of Erwin S. Solomon et al., Henri Verwayen, Wolfgang Zapf, and Frank M. Andrews in Alexander Szalai and Frank M. Andrews (eds.), The Quality of Life — Comparative Studies (Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, Inc., 1980), Part III, 223–285.