Standard of living measures

1
Standard of living measures

• Stephen P. Jenkins
• Institute for Social and Economic Research
• Email stephenj_at_essex.ac.uk

2
The diversity of potential SoL measuresmonetary
non-monetary

• For example
• money income (aggregated over a number of income
  sources)
• consumption expenditures (aggregated over a
  number of headings), and other indicators
• financial wealth and other assets
• multiple non-monetary indicators of deprivation
  or hardship, and associated summary indices
• subjective measures of financial well-being,
  satisfaction, and happiness
• SoL measures are used both as outcomes and
  predictors

3
SoL measures current practice

• 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.
• Consumption expenditure emphasised by economists
• few detailed comprehensive measures in
  longitudinal surveys (focus of selected items,
  e.g. housing, food, durables)
• Wealth data
• detailed regular for e.g. housing fewer
  detailed and comprehensive, or regularly
  collected, measures
• Material deprivation indicators now
  supplementing UK and EU official monitoring
• e.g. BHPS, ECHP
• Subjective measures growing interest
• e.g. BHPS, GSOEP
• No survey currently contains all measures

4
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?

5
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?

6
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