Measuring people’s living conditions

Fri, 23 Jun 2017 11:05:16 +0000

In this article I demonstrate how people’s living conditions can be measured and how statistics play an important role in making decisions using these measurements.

There are many types of measurements of living conditions but the most widely-used measure of the standard of living is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. It is a concept that involves determining the total output of goods and services produced in a year by everyone within the country’s borders [population]. In assessing if numbers tell the whole story about people’s living conditions and standards, Demarchi et al (2016) logically argue that numbers do not lie and confirm that that is why, in our day-to-day lives, we rely heavily on numbers from household surveys, from national accounts, and from other traditional sources to describe the world around us: to calculate, to compare, to measure, to understand economic and social trends in the country. The fundamental questions they raise are: Do we perhaps rely too much on numbers to gain an understanding of people’s lives and the societies in which we live? Do numbers really tell us the whole story, or give us the full picture? These questions are partially answered in this article.

Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS)

In an effort to measure the living conditions of people in our country, the Living Conditions Monitoring Surveys (LCMS) are conducted by the Central Statistical Office (CSO). The first LCMS was conducted in 1996. Other surveys were undertaken in 1998, 2002/3, 2004, 2006, 2010, and the latest one being 2015. Each of the LCMSs has been used to assess the effectiveness of Government policies and development programmes. In particular, the 2015 LCMS aimed at (a) monitoring the impact of government policies and programs on the well-being of the Zambian population; (b) monitoring the level of poverty and its distribution in Zambia; (c) providing various users with a set of reliable indicators against which to monitor development; and identifying vulnerable groups in society and enhance targeting in policy implementation. In general, the 2015 was particularly aimed at monitoring and highlighting the living conditions of the Zambian society. Furthermore, the survey included a set of priority indicators on poverty and other living conditions that were used to measure the progress that the country was making towards the attainment of both domestic and global development targets such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Revised Sixth National Development Plan. The next survey is expected to pay attention to the progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Seventh National Development (2017-2021), which was launched by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Edgar C. Lungu on 21st June 2017.

This 2015 survey report summarises the findings covering household demographic characteristics, migration, education, health, economic activities of household members, household income and Assets, household expenditure, food production and consumption, community developmental Issues, household access to amenities and housing conditions, and poverty. Data collection was collected using face-to-face personal interviews and structured electronic. All these are part of the overall measurements of living conditions of the Zambian people. Let me now give some illustrations based on the 2015 LCMS on some key measurements in living conditions: (a)The population of Zambia was estimated at 15.5 million in 2015. The population was mainly concentrated in rural areas at 58.2 percent compared to 41.8 percent in urban areas (CSO,2016) (b) The average household size in Zambia was 5.1 persons. Overall, the average household size tends to be larger in rural areas with an average of 5.2 persons per household compared to 5.0 persons per household in urban areas (c)              At national level, results show that the school attendance rates for the primary school-age population (7-13 years) was 83.1 percent while that of secondary school-age population (14-18 years) was 75.7 percent. Specifically, The attendance rate for females of secondary school-age (14-18 years) was 73.4 percent while that of the males was 78.4 percent (d)                Rural/urban analysis indicates that the average amount spent in rural areas was K72.64 compared to K176.22 in urban areas (e)           The Gini Coefficient is a measure of inequality. It ranges from 0 to 1. The lower the Gini Coefficient, the lower the inequalities. The Gini Coefficient was 0.69 at national level, 0.60 in Rural and 0.61 in urban areas (f) Poverty in Zambia still remains predominantly a rural phenomenon with poverty levels at 76.6 percent compared to 23.4 percent in urban areas (g)       Headcount poverty by province. The results show that Western Province had the highest proportion of the population that was poor at 82.2 percent while Lusaka Province had the lowest at 20.2 percent (h) Results show that most children aged 12-23 months had received at least one dose of each of the four vaccinations against BCG (97.9 percent), DPT (98.3 percent), polio (97.2 percent) and measles (87.8 percent).

Measuring Overcrowding in Houses

A record of the physical characteristics, quality, and condition of the nation’s housing stock and of the characteristics of the households in occupied housing units is needed. The most common measure of overcrowding is persons-per-room in a dwelling unit. Overcrowding includes: the total number of persons in a unit, regardless of unit size; the ratio of persons to floor space in square metres; and the person-to-size ratio adjusted for household composition, structure type, location, or lot size. Overcrowding can be assessed using the following measures: persons-per-room (PPR) or persons-per-bedroom (PPB).  Persons-Per-Room measure utilises rooms and not bedrooms. This is a challenge in a number of areas in Zambia. You find that in low-density residential areas, you can find two people living in house with 10 rooms while in a high-density residential area a house with two rooms occupied by 9 people. Persons-Per-Bedroom (PPB) is another interesting measure that can be used to measure overcrowding.

Measuring Quality

of Life

There is need for measurement of quality of life beyond the GDP. Quality of life is a broad concept that encompasses a number of different dimensions. Measuring quality of life for different populations and countries in a comparable manner is a complex task, and a scoreboard of indicators covering a number of relevant dimensions is needed for this purpose.

Material living standards are measured on the basis of three sub-dimensions: income, consumption and material conditions such as deprivation and housing. Income is an important indicator as it has an impact on most of the other indicators in the framework. There are several different indicators within this sub dimension, taken from both national accounts and household surveys (net national income, household disposable income). Material conditions provide important complementary information to the money-based approaches.

Health

Health is an essential part of the quality of life of citizens. Poor health can affect the general progress of society. Physical and/or mental problems also have a very detrimental effect on subjective well-being. Health conditions in Zambia are mainly measured using objective health outcome indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, the number of healthy life years, but also more subjective indicators, such as access to healthcare and self-evaluation of one’s health. The health status of household members is a direct indicator of welfare of the household.  Information on health consultations and health facilities visited is obtained from all persons in the survey who reported an illness. This information helps in coming up with indicators on incidence of illnesses, medication and health consultations costs.

Education

In our knowledge-based economies, education plays a pivotal role in the lives of citizens and is an important factor in determining how far they progress in life. Levels of education can determine the job an individual will have. Individuals with limited skills and competences are usually excluded from a wide range of jobs and sometimes even miss out on opportunities to achieve valued goals within society. They also have fewer prospects for economic prosperity. In Zambia, currently available indicators of education that are relevant for quality of life are a population’s educational attainment, the number of early school leavers, self-assessed and assessed skills and participation in life-long learning.

Social

Interactions

The power of networks and social connections should not be underestimated when trying to measure the well-being of an individual, as they directly influence life satisfaction. In Zambia, this is measured in terms of how often citizens spend time with people at sporting or cultural events or if they volunteer for different types of organisations. In addition, the potential to receive social support and the frequency of social contacts are indicators included in the framework under this dimension. Are people able to by foot/net balls or they just improvise by putting some plastic materials together such as “chimpombwa”? These days we hear of  “Chimpombwa” football league.

Governance

In modern democratic societies, the right to get involved in public debates and influence the shaping of public policies is an important aspect of quality of life. Moreover, providing the right legislative guarantees for citizens is a fundamental aspect of democratic societies. Good governance depends on the participation of citizens in public and political life (for example, involvement in political parties, trade unions etc.). It is reflected also in the level of trust of citizens in the country’s institutions, satisfaction with public services and the lack of discrimination.

Natural and Living Environment

The protection of the environment has been very high on the Zambian agenda over the last few decades. The vast majority of Zambian citizens believe that protecting the environment is important. Exposure to air, water and noise pollution can have a direct impact on the health of individuals and the economic prosperity of societies. Environment-related indicators are very important for assessing quality of life in Zambia. Both subjective (individuals’ own perceptions) and objective (the amount of pollutants present in the air) indicators are included.

Conclusion

It is necessary to measure people’s living conditions. As a society we need to seek to better understand barriers to accessing jobs, reducing poverty and sharing prosperity across our country. There a number of implications of the living conditions results for decision making, policy and programme formulation. The living conditions survey can assist in determining the level of poverty as it is typically measured by purchasing power or per capita expenditures made by the household, in the form of poverty rates or expenditure quintiles. Purchasing power has a strong correlation to most other living condition indices and is therefore used as a main indicator of poverty and vulnerability. Productivity and incomes from occupations and livelihoods are important factors for reducing poverty. Social conditions such as health, nutrition, education and housing influence productivity, thus affecting poverty status. These in turn are influenced by poverty, affecting the ability of households to gain access to adequate social conditions to improve their productivity. Efforts towards poverty alleviation therefore, require a complete intervention scheme, not simply in economic aspects, but including social dimensions as well, so that poverty may be addressed as a socio-economic phenomenon. Statistics is a very important tool for the measurement of people’s living conditions.