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Standard of living measures. Stephen P. Jenkins Institute for Social and Economic Research Email: [email protected]. The diversity of potential SoL measures: monetary & non-monetary. For example: money income (aggregated over a number of income sources) - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Standard of living measures
Stephen P. JenkinsInstitute for Social and Economic Research
Email: [email protected]
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The diversity of potential SoL measures:monetary & non-monetary
For example:1. money income (aggregated over a number of
income sources)2. ‘consumption’ – expenditures (aggregated over a
number of headings), and other indicators3. financial wealth and other assets4. multiple non-monetary indicators of deprivation or
hardship, and associated summary indices5. subjective measures of financial well-being,
satisfaction, and happiness SoL measures are used both as outcomes and
predictors
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SoL measures: current practice
1. Household income: most commonly used measure, including in official monitoring of poverty and living standards in UK, Europe and elsewhere – e.g. BHPS, ECHP, EU-SILC, PSID, SIPP, GSOEP, etc.
2. Consumption expenditure: emphasised by economists– few detailed comprehensive measures in longitudinal surveys (focus
of selected items, e.g. housing, food, durables)
3. Wealth data– detailed & regular for e.g. housing; fewer detailed and comprehensive,
or regularly collected, measures
4. Material deprivation indicators: now supplementing UK and EU official monitoring– e.g. BHPS, ECHP
5. Subjective measures: growing interest– e.g. BHPS, GSOEP
No survey currently contains all measures
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Top-level issues
• What are the most important research questions to be addressed using SoL measures, now and potentially in the future?
• Which of the measures cited (or others) should receive priority?
• How important is continuity of measurement relative to the existing BHPS, and comparability with other UK national surveys?
• To what extent is cross-national comparability an important consideration?
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Some common definitional issues
• Optimal data collection frequency?– e.g. sub-annual, annual, less frequent
• Reference period?– e.g. current versus annual for income/expenditure
• How comprehensive a measure is really required?– e.g. specific aspects of total income/expenditure/wealth
versus aggregate itself
– e.g. domain satisfactions versus overall happiness
– e.g. which indicators of deprivation
• Which ‘unit(s)’ necessary for? – each adult? each individual? key persons? household?
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Various data collection issues
• Relative pay-offs to different methods of data collection? – e.g. face-to-face interviews versus telephone or web;
– e.g. interviewer-derived versus self-completion;
– e.g. non-traditional tools of data collection
– e.g. use of proxy respondents
• Relative pay-offs to different levels of detail– e.g. exact amounts, grouped, unfolding bracket
– e.g. number of categories in a deprivation indicator or happiness measure