SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF QUALITY OF LIFE: CASE OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF QUALITY OF LIFE: CASE OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of economicand social drivers of quality of life. The method ofweighted sums and the Fishburn formula were employedto assess the level of quality of life. Using Ward's methodand the Kalinsky-Kharabash test, three clusters ofcountries were identified. The relationship betweenindicators was modeled with the Johansen, Dickey-Fullerand Phillips-Perron tests. Five indicators of socialdevelopment (children out of school, unemployment,literacy rate, hospital beds, total population) and sixindicators of economic development (GDP, minimumwage, government expenditure on education, currenthealth expenditure, state expenditure on physical cultureand sports industry) were chosen to establish therelationship between the indicators. The research wasfocused on the data of 30 European countries. Twohypotheses were proposed and tested in the study.Hypothesis H1 was that public spending on education,health care, and sports stimulates an increase in the qualityof life. This hypothesis was confirmed for all countries.Hypothesis H2 assumed that the number of children outof school, the level of unemployment, and illiteracynegatively affect the quality of life. This hypothesis wasconfirmed only for a small number of countries.

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