PROSPERITY INDEX AS A MEASURE OF QUALITY OF LIFE IN MACEDONIA

Abstract

Quality of life is an exceptionally complex concept which is the object of interest of different scientific disciplines such as: medicine, sociology, psychology, economics, philosophy, environment, sport, recreation, architecture etc. This concept is a very broad and multidimensional concept covering all spheres of society i.e. the overall well-being of people and society. Quality of life has objective and subjective dimension and can be measured at the level of individuals or society in global. This concept is a difficult concept to define, widely used, but with little consistency, enjoying a wide variety of definitions. There is no single fully agreed definition of quality of life, although a working group of the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined the concept with emphasis on the personal evaluation of functioning in relation to individual and/or cultural standards, values, expectations and goals.Nowadays, many indicators are used for measuring the quality of life concept. These composite indicators are significantly different from each other according to: components that make them, sources of data, methodology of calculation, development aspects they focus on, their coverage etc. Some of those indicators are: Happy Planet Index (HPY), Human Development Index (HDI), Better Life Index, Where to be Born Index, Legatum Prosperity Index (LPI), etc.One of these indicators is Legatum Prosperity Index (LPI), a relative new and comprehensive indicator, which explains in a unique way the level and the dynamics of prosperity of the countries in the world. The Legatum Prosperity Index (LPI) captures the breadth of prosperity of the country across nine pillars of prosperity: economic quality, business environment, governance, safety and security, education, health, and natural environment. This index is based on 104 different variables analyzed across 149 nations around the world, covering more than 96% of the world’s population and 99% of the world’s GDP. The analyzed country is given a score for each pillar. This score is based on the country’s performance with respect to each of the indicators in that pillar. Each pillar contains around 12 indicators. The mean of nine pillar scores yields a country’s overall Prosperity score. The overall Prosperity Index rankings are based on this score.In This paper firstly will be explained the concept of quality of life and the index of prosperity as an index for measuring the quality of life, its construction and calculation, as well as its application in calculating the quality of life in Macedonia for the period 2007-2018.