Subjectively Evaluated Quality of Life: the Case of Largest Cities of Lithuania

Abstract

There are many spheres of life that can lead to people’s happiness and satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Some of them are related with the material areas, such as state of economy or income level, the other are related with the social and emotional aspects of life, such as trust in people and public institutions, and the other cover the areas of the physical-productive quality of life, for example, satisfaction with the state of education.

The paper examines the variations of subjective quality of life among the largest cities of Lithuania. The central thesis of this paper is that the information of subjective quality of life is important in order to develop the strategies for improving quality of life at the local level (municipality, city, neighbourhood, etc.). We argue that knowing of the objective parameters is not enough. So, it is important to understand how people value and how they are happy and satisfied with different aspects of their life.

The profiles of the largest cities of Lithuania that represent all these spheres of subjective quality of life are presented in this paper. The research is based on data gathered through European Social Survey which has been conducted every two years since 2001, in a number of the European and other countries. This survey conducted in Lithuania during 2008-2009 and covered the largest cities of the country.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.78.4.3235