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SOCIAL INDICATORS AND QUALITY OF LIFE RESEARCH: BACKGROUND, ACHIEVEMENTS AND CURRENT TRENDS * Heinz-Herbert Noll
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1 SOCIAL INDICATORS AND QUALITY OF LIFE RESEARCH: BACKGROUND, ACHIEVEMENTS AND CURRENT TRENDS * Heinz-Herbert Noll At the beginning of the 21st century, social indicators and quality of life research are well established fields of social science in many countries around the world. Numerous book publications, entries in handbooks and encyclopaedias, specialized journals and newsletters, national and international professional organizations, conferences and congresses and not the least regular courses taught within university curricula are some indications of the successful career of two rather new branches of social research. This article will summarize the background and objectives, the major approaches and applications and will discuss some of the recent developments as well as further prospects of these multidisciplinary research fields. 1. Background and Objectives of the Social Indicators Movement and Quality of Life Research As a field of social science social indicators research was born in the United States in the mid-1960s. Actually it came into being as part of an attempt of the American space agency NASA to detect and anticipate the impact and side effects of the American space program on the U.S. society. The project came to the conclusion that there was almost a complete lack not only of adequate data but also of concepts and appropriate methodologies for this purpose. Presumably it was Raymond Bauer, the director of this project, who also invented the term and basic concept of social indicators. In his definition, social indicators were statistics, statistical series, and all other forms of evidence that enable us to assess where we stand and are going with respect to our values and goals (Bauer, 1966: 1). Although the so called social indicators movement obviously is a child of the sixties and early seventies of the 20th century, there are several predecessors of modern social indicators research. Among the most important are the trend reports by W. F. Ogburn - in particular the well-known report on Recent Social Trends in the United States which was published in 1933 by the U.S. President Hoover s Committee on Social * Published in: Genov, Nicolai Ed. (2002) Advances in Sociological Knowledge over Half a Century. Paris: International Social Science Council. 1
2 Trends. The research conducted by Jan Drewnowski and an expert commission of the United Nations is considered to be another root of social indicators research in so far as this research activities were supposed to improve measurement of the level of living by identifying components of welfare and by constructing respective indicators 1. Another important predecessor of modern social indicators research, whose merits in this respect have not yet been sufficiently acknowledged, is the Italian statistician and criminologist Alfredo Niceforo. In his book on Les indices numérique de la civilisation et du progrès (Niceforo, 1921), he made an important attempt to identify quantifiable symptoms of living conditions in a broad sense indicators in our modern terminology in order to measure and monitor levels and degrees of civilization and social progress across time and space 2. Leaving alone the much older tradition of social statistics in general, Niceforo thus may be considered the originator of an approach of comprehensive welfare and quality of life measurement as it is the concern of modern social indicators and quality of life research 3. The innovative ideas, concepts, and early approaches of social indicators research, which were first developed and discussed in the United States, spread out to European and other countries and were taken up by international organizations soon after. The OECD started its well known program of work on social indicators in 1970 (Bertrand 1986/1987), and roughly at the same time, the Social and Economic Council of the United Nations initiated a project directed by the later Nobel-Prize laureate Richard Stone in order to develop a most ambitious System of Social and Demographic Statistics, in which social indicators were supposed to play a key role. The early stages of social indicators research did not only exert an enormous scientific influence. These activities were also undertaken with a strong sense of commitment and a sense of mission and thus became well known as the social indicators movement. Obviously the rise and rapid diffusion of this movement was related to the particular political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was this period of prosperity, when for the first time in some of the most developed Western societies doubts were raised about economic growth as the major goal of social progress. The social costs of economic growth (Mishan 1967), public poverty as well as the existence of isles of individual poverty as the dark side of general private affluence were emphasized and received public attention in the political debates of the time. 2
3 Against this background it seemed to be arguable whether more should continue to equal better, and it became increasingly a public claim to prefer quality to quantity. To some degree the changes towards post-materialism (Inglehart 1977) in value orientations and perspectives of social development did reflect the diminishing marginal utility of material wealth, but they were also due to the emerging characteristics of a postindustrial society. Thus, the concept of quality of life was born as an alternative to the more and more questionable concept of material prosperity in the affluent society and was considered the new, multidimensional and much more complex goal of societal development. As early as in 1964, the former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson stated: the great society is concerned not with how much, but with how good - not with the quantity of goods but with the quality of their lives. From this background quality of life was considered the developmental goal of affluent, postindustrial societies, concerned about their ecological basis and facing the limits of further growth (Glatzer 1992). The optimistic idea that societal structures and processes could be comprehensively modeled and actively guided by politics used to be another characteristic of the specific political climate of this period. Concepts like the active society and an active social policy promised a transition from reactive politics of muddling through to a new and much more rational, knowledge based and efficient model of governance. However, a model of policy making which aims at such goals needs to be based on information which enables decision makers to recognize problems early, to set priorities, and to monitor and evaluate the impact, efficiency and success of programs and measures. Given this background, the rise of social indicators and empirical quality of life research was to a considerable extend a result of the formation of new goals of societal development not least reflecting changes in value orientations. At the same time, it was a response to the increased demand for information created by an active social policy and by the challenge to operationalize and to quantify its core formula quality of life. 2. Definitions, Properties and Functions of Social Indicators Among the numerous definitions of social indicators, two more recent ones are particularly significant and worth to be mentioned. The first stems from the Australian Bureau of Statistics: Social indicators are measures of social well-being which provide a contemporary view of social conditions and monitor trends in a range of areas of social 3
4 concern over time (McEwin, 1995: ). The second one appears in a United Nations document: Social indicators can be defined as statistics that usefully reflect important social conditions and that facilitate the process of assessing those conditions and their evolution. Social Indicators are used to identify social problems that require action, to develop priorities and goals for action and spending, and to assess the effectiveness of programmes and policies (United Nations, 1994). Both definitions stress the focus of social indicators on living conditions in areas of social concern and the function of monitoring these conditions over time. The definition by the United Nations is much more ambitious than the first one, since it considers the uses of social indicators not merely in description and trend monitoring, but also in identifying problems, priority setting and the assessment of programs and policies. Under which conditions and to which extend social indicators may fulfill these latter purposes seems to be controversial, however. Depending on the specific uses, social indicators are supposed to identify certain properties. In general, social indicators should reflect a particular social idea, be valid and meaningful, be sensitive to the underlying phenomenon, be summary in nature, be available as time series, be able to be disaggregated, be intelligible and easily interpreted, and relate where appropriate to other indicators (McEwin, 1995: 315). Beyond the more general properties of social indicators, which are rather broadly agreed upon, Judith Innes has developed criteria about what makes a good indicator to use in public decisions (Innes, 1990: 110). According to her considerations, the measure must be pertinent to questions of concern; the concepts underlying the measures must be clear and agreed upon; the measure must relate to the concept which it is assumed to, and do so in a well understood way; the methods to produce the measure must provide reliable results, measuring what they purport to without hidden or unexpected bias; and the measure must be understandable and understood in its concept and limitations (Innes, 1990: 110). Also major parties to discussion on opposite sides must accept the measure and it should relate to more complex analytical models (Innes, 1990: 110). Beyond the general goal of improving the information base of societies, two basic functions of social indicators are to be distinguished: monitoring of social change and measurement of individual and societal welfare. 4
5 In the broadest sense, social indicators are regarded as instruments for the regular observation and analysis of social change. The notion of social indicators as indicators of social change (Sheldon and Moore 1968) traces back to Ogburn and has mainly been stressed by scholars in his tradition (Smelser and Gerstein 1986). From this point of view, social indicators are - according to Wolfgang Zapf all data which enlighten us in some way about structures and processes, goals and achievements, values and opinions" (Zapf, 1977b: 236). Within this approach, the focus is on developing standards to register and monitor progress in modernization of a society and the related problems and consequences. Tasks deriving from those functions are in particular: the description of social trends, the explanation of these trends, the identification of relevant relationships between different developments, and the investigation of the consequences of those changes in time series of indicators (Land, 1983). In this sense, the primary function is not the direct guidance and efficiency control of political programs, but the broad societal enlightenment and the provision of an information base which supports the policy making process in an indirect way. Policy makers need to be informed about trends of social change, as for example changes in value orientations and life styles, even if these changes are not the target of specific programs and political measures. The volumes on Recent Social Trends in the United States, France, Quebec, Germany, Italy, Russia and Bulgaria as they have been published by the international research group on Comparative Charting of Social Change may be regarded as recent examples of monitoring trends of general social change within this tradition 4. The primary function of social indicators may however be regarded as the measurement of levels, distributions and changes in individual and societal welfare. Welfare development has been considered a specific dimension of the comprehensive processes of modernization (Zapf, 1993). As measures of welfare or quality of life, social indicators are required to display specific characteristics: social indicators should (1) be related to individuals or private households rather than to other social aggregates, they should (2) be oriented towards societal goals, and they should (3) measure the output not the input of social processes or policies. As welfare indicators, social indicators always have a direct normative relationship, and one should be able to interpret changes in indicators unequivocally as improvement or deterioration of welfare or the quality of life. It is in this sense that Mancur Olson has, in his well known definition, called a social 5
6 indicator a statistic of direct normative interest which facilitates concise, comprehensive and balanced judgements about the condition of major aspects of a society. It is in all cases a direct measure of welfare and is subject to the interpretation that if it changes in the right direction, while other things remain equal, things have gotten better, or people are 'better off'" (Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1969: 97). The assessment and monitoring of well-being is also the major focus of the broader field of quality of life research. But beyond the construction and application of indicators for social monitoring and reporting, quality of life research is also concerned with more general problems of welfare measurement, conceptual considerations and the analysis and explanation of interrelations between the various objective and subjective components and dimensions of the complex phenomenon of quality of life. 3. Approaches and Research Directions Since social indicators and quality of life research are essentially concerned with measuring and monitoring welfare and quality of life, the notions and theoretical underpinnings of these concepts are of crucial importance: In order to measure quality of life, one must have a theory of what makes up a good life (Cobb, 2000: 6) 5. There is a variety of such theories and notions of what constitutes a good life or a good society and correspondingly different concepts of welfare and quality of life have been developed. Various approaches and operationalizations are to be distinguished, each of which reveals a different notion of welfare and thus highlights different components and dimensions. Moreover, the kind of indicators chosen for empirical measurement depends also largely on the underlying conceptualization. In particular, the distinction between socalled objective and subjective social indicators goes closely together with the respective conceptual frame of reference. While objective social indicators are statistics which represent social facts independent of personal evaluations, subjective social indicators are measures of individual perceptions and evaluations of social conditions (Noll, 2000b) Notions of Welfare and Approaches of Quality of Life Measurement Among the various efforts to operationalize welfare in general and the quality of life concept in particular, two rather contrary approaches are to be distinguished, which 6
7 define the two extreme positions on a broad continuum of concepts currently available (Noll/Zapf, 1994): the Scandinavian level of living approach (Erikson, 1993; Uusitalo, 1994) and the American quality of life approach (Campbell/Converse/Rodgers, 1976). As two distinctive conceptualizations and operationalizations of welfare and quality of life 6, the Scandinavian approach focuses almost exclusively on resources and objective living conditions, whereas the American approach emphasises the subjective well-being of individuals as a final outcome of conditions and processes. The level of living approach as it has been developed by Scandinavian welfare researchers following the tradition set by Jan Drewnowski and Richard Titmus bases welfare measurement exclusively on objective indicators. Within this tradition, welfare is understood as the individuals command over, under given determinants mobilizable resources, with whose help he/she can control and consciously direct his/her living conditions" (Erikson, 1974: 275; Erikson, 1993: 72 ff.). This notion of welfare departs from the perception of the individual citizen as an active, creative being, and the autonomous definer of his own end. The resources are mere means to the latter" (Thålin, 1990: 166). Resources are defined in terms of money, property, knowledge, psychic and physical energy, social relations, security and so on (Erikson/Uusitalo, 1987: 189). The focus is on the objective living conditions, life chances and their determinants: We... try to assess the individual s level of living in a way which makes it as little influenced as possible by the individual's evaluation of his own situation" (Erikson, 1993: 77). A more recent and to some respect similar concept of welfare and quality of life is that of capabilities, which has been developed by Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics. This approach is based on a view of living as a combination of various doings and beings, with quality of life to be assessed in terms of the capability to achieve valuable functionings (Sen, 1993: 31). Functionings represent parts of the state of a person in particular the various things that he or she manages to do or be in leading a life.... Some functionings are very elementary, such as being adequately nourished, being in good health, etc.... others may be more complex, but still widely valued, such as achieving self-respect or being socially integrated (Sen, 1993: 31). This notion of welfare and quality of life has been elaborated within the Human Development Approach, the conceptual framework of the series of Human Development Reports published by the United Nations Development Program. 7
8 The American quality of life research is an approach, which contrary to the level of living approach, bases welfare measurement primarily on subjective indicators. In the tradition of utilitarian philosophy, mental health research and strongly influenced by social psychologists like W.I. Thomas known by his dictum that if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences (Thomas 1928: ), this approach ultimately defines welfare as subjective well-being. The representatives of this approach underline that welfare and quality of life are supposed to be subjectively perceived and experienced by the individual. Thus, from this point of view, the subjective well-being of the individual citizen is considered to be the ultimate goal of societal development and the yardstick to be used for measuring the quality of life: The quality of life must be in the eye of the beholder (Campbell, 1972: 442) 7. Accordingly, the common man himself is considered to be the best expert to evaluate his quality of life in terms of subjective well-being. The most important indicators of subjective well-being used actually are measures of satisfaction and happiness. During the last three decades subjective human well-being has been the subject of numerous studies, developing theoretical models and empirical measures, describing and comparing levels and changes of well-being for various populations and suggesting explanations for these findings 8. The empirical correlates and explanatory factors of life satisfaction as an overall indicator of general subjective well-being are at the centre of a research field, which during recent years has attracted much interest and attention all around the world Objective and Subjective Indicators Using objective indicators starts from the assumption that living conditions can be judged to be favourable or unfavourable by comparing real conditions with normative criteria like values, goals or objectives. An important precondition, however, is that there is a societal or even political consensus about three key issues: first, about the dimensions that are relevant for welfare considerations; second, about good and bad conditions; third, about the direction in which society should move. This may sometimes be the case, but it is certainly not always ensured. Probably there is a consensus that we would consider a reduction of unemployment or crime and an increase in average income or educational level as improvement and progress. We could perhaps be less sure, when it comes to 8
9 indicators like the age of retirement; and it might indeed be debatable whether a reduction of income inequality should in general be regarded as social progress, given the fact that there may be a trade-off between equity and efficiency or fairness and economic growth (McMurrer/Sawhill, 1998: 25). In contrast to that, using subjective social indicators is based on the premise that welfare, in the final instance, must be perceived by individual citizens and can be judged best by them. This position, too, is not undisputed and has caused a deep controversy about the principles of welfare measurement. Particularly Scandinavian welfare researchers have criticized this subjective quality of life approach and the use of subjective indicators. One of their concerns with an approach based on people s own assessment of their degree of satisfaction is that it is partly determined by their level of aspiration (Erikson, 1993: 77) 10. Looking at how satisfied people are, from this point of view is being criticized as measuring how well they are adapted to their present conditions (Erikson 1993: 77). According to R. Erikson - one of the most eminent proponents of Scandinavian welfare research people s opinions and preferences should go into the democratic political process through their activities as citizens, but not through survey questions and opinion polls (1993: 78). Contrary to this position, others have underlined that policy makers need to use subjective indicators along with objective indicators:...subjective indicators are indispensable in social policy, both for assessing policy success and for selecting policy goals (Veenhoven, 2000: 6). In addition to the general doubts concerning the use of subjective indicators, questions have been raised concerning the validity and reliability of this kind of information. However, there is not much reason to believe that subjective indicators are less valid and reliable than other survey data, which always are affected by measurement errors: Subjective indicators measure, what they ought to measure and they react sensitive to societal developments (Habich/Zapf, 1994: 30). Today, the overall consensus of opinion is to base welfare measurement on both objective and subjective indicators, given the fact that similar living conditions are evaluated quite differently, that people in bad conditions frequently are satisfied and privileged persons may be very dissatisfied (Zapf, 1984). Such a broader notion of welfare and quality of life was for example taken as the basis of Erik Allardt s Comparative Scandinavian Welfare Study as early as in the beginning of the 1970ties. 9
10 This approach distinguishes between three classes of basic needs of human beings - having, loving and being (Allardt, 1993) 11. For each category, objective as well as subjective dimensions of need satisfaction are considered. Within the predominant approach of German welfare research, individual welfare or quality of life is defined as good living conditions which g together with positive subjective well-being (Zapf, 1984). Within this frame of reference, the covariations between objective and subjective indicators are of particular interest, since subjective well-being is supposed to be only partially determined by external conditions. More recently Lane (1996) has defined quality of life not only as a state, but as a process which includes subjective and objective elements. In his approach, he particularly emphasizes the active role of personal experience and the capacity of individuals in his terms the quality of persons - as a constitutive element of life quality: Quality of life is properly defined by the relation between two subjective or person-based elements and a set of objective circumstances. The subjective elements of a high quality of life comprise: (1) a sense of well-being and (2) personal development, learning growth.... The objective element is conceived as quality of conditions representing opportunities for exploitation by the person living a life (Lane, 1996: 259) Utility Versus Agency There is a multitude of current conceptualizations of welfare and quality of life following the one or the other tradition. The predominant use of objective or subjective indicators is of course only one distinctive feature. According to Clifford W. Cobb (2000), the various notions might be assigned to utilitarian as opposed to capabilities or human development approaches. Similarly, Esping-Andersen distinguishes approaches based on needs as opposed to resources (Esping-Andersen, 2000). According to the dominating utilitarian or needs-based approaches, quality of life involves the satisfaction of the desires of individuals, and the good society is defined as one that provides the maximum satisfaction or positive experiences for its citizens (Cobb, 2000: 9). Conceptualizations following a resources approach or capabilities / human development theory on the other hand emphasize human action or agency. From this point of view a society that enables its citizens to aspire to greatness, to develop virtues and loyalties, to become skilled and artistic, and to attain wisdom is far better than a 10
11 society that merely provides the means to satisfy desires (Cobb, 2000: 10). According to Cobb (2000:13), utilitarian approaches are in Erik Allardt s terms, limited to having, whereas the human development idea includes having, but also encompasses doing and being Individual Versus Societal Quality of Life A common feature of most of the current quality of life approaches is the more or less implicit or explicit conceptualization of quality of life as concerning individual characteristics and life circumstances. Although they have been part of the early notions of the quality of life concept, dimensions of welfare related to societal characteristics and qualities such as equality, equity, freedom, or solidarity which affect the welfare situation of individuals directly or indirectly - have been rather neglected, at least as far as empirical measurement and research are concerned. In contrast to this, some of the more recent welfare concepts put the focus explicitly on aspects concerning the quality of societies, the distribution of welfare and social relations within societies (Noll, 2000a). Social cohesion and sustainability are two major examples of notions of the good society stressing relational and societal rather than individual characteristics. In recent years the concept of social cohesion received great attention not only within academic debates, but also within policy making processes at national and supranational levels. The increasing popularity of the concept is most likely due to various aspects of economic and social change which are currently considered to threaten the social cohesion of societies such as rising income inequality, poverty, unemployment, and crime. As a detailed review of the literature reveals (Berger-Schmitt/Noll, 2000; Berger-Schmitt, 2000), the concept of social cohesion incorporates mainly two dimensions of societal development which may be related to each other but should be distinguished analytically. The first dimension concerns the reduction of disparities, inequalities, fragmentations and cleavages which have also been denoted as fault lines of societies. The concept of social exclusion is covered by this notion too. The second dimension embraces the forces strengthening social relations, ties and commitments to and within a community. This dimension is also stressed by the concepts of social inclusion and social capital. Although both of these dimensions emphasized within the social cohesion discourse are supposed 11
12 to represent major components of individual and societal well-being, they have been rather neglected yet within mainstream quality of life research. During the 1990s, the concept of sustainability has become a popular and most important model of societal development and a better society. From a general point of view, the concept of sustainability can be seen as a new answer to the traditional concern with a balanced and harmonious society and societal development (Noll, 2000a). The concept became popular in 1987 as the central message of the so-called Brundtland- Report Our Common Future of the World Commission on Environment and Development, where it was defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 43). Usually three dimensions of sustainable development are being distinguished: the environmental, the social and the economic dimension which are supposed to be linked to each other. Thus, sustainability has been defined as a continuous striving for the harmonious co-evolution of environmental, economic and socio-cultural goals (Mega/Pedersen, 1998: 2). Among the various attempts to conceptualize and to operationalize sustainable development 12, the World Bank s Multiple Capital Model (World Bank, 1997) is one of the best known and popular approaches. Within this approach, sustainable development is conceptualized with reference to national wealth and denotes the maintenance or enhancement of wealth for future generations. The World Bank approach distinguishes between four components of wealth: natural capital, produced/man-made capital, human capital and social capital. From this perspective, the goal of passing on to the next generation at least as much natural, economic, human and social capital as the current generation has at its disposal is at the centre of the idea of a sustainable development. While the view of traditional quality of life research is mainly focused on the well-being of present generations, sustainability considerations put the emphasis on intergenerational equity and thus are being essential for ensuring the quality of life of future generations. In this sense, sustainable development has become a widely accepted term to describe the goal of achieving a high, equitable and sustainable quality of life (Eckersley, 1998: 6). 12
13 4. Applications and Uses of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research Meanwhile the innovative ideas developed within the social indicators movement and several decades of quality of life research have not only been documented in all kinds of academic publications, including numerous book volumes, handbooks, articles as well as specialized journals and newsletters, like Social Indicators Research, the Journal of Happiness Studies, INDICATORS, Social Indicators Network News and the German Informationsdienst Soziale Indikatoren. Moreover, these ideas and findings have also found their way into regular university curricula and into the policy making processes at various levels - supranational, national, regional and local. Academics and practitioners working in these fields have organized themselves in professional working groups, associations and societies like the working group Social Indicators and Social Reporting within the International Sociological Association or the International Society for Quality of Life Studies. The results of social indicators and quality of life research in terms of concepts, methodologies, monitoring tools, indicator selections and the like are being used by many observatories around the globe for continuous social measurement and monitoring. However, few systems of social indicators have been developed so far (Berger- Schmitt/Jankowitsch, 1999). Among them are the Swedish survey based ULF system 13 and the German System of Social Indicators, which comes also as an electronic information system (DISI 2.0) 14. Both of these tools for systematic social monitoring have originally been developed in the seventies already. A recent example of a social indicator system is the European System of Social Indicators, which has been developed as part of the EuReporting-Project, funded by the European Commission from 1998 to This system is considered to be an instrument to continuously monitor the social situation and societal changes in Europe (Noll, 2002b). The indicator system covers 14 life domains altogether. Within each life domain, the dimensions of measurement and indicators address different aspects of individual quality of life, as well as dimensions of social cohesion and sustainability as two mayor components of the quality of society (Berger-Schmitt/Noll, 2000). Moreover, also basic dimensions of the social structure as well as attitudes and value orientations are being covered. The indicator system not yet finalized shall include 20 European countries, but also the U.S. and Japan as two important reference societies. As 13
14 part of this research an electronic European Social Indicators Information System is under development, which will provide an innovative and easy to use tool to query, retrieve and display the data either in tabular or graphic formats at the PC screen and to transfer this information into other applications Social Reporting: A Major Application Regular social monitoring and reporting is by far the most important and most successful application of social indicators and quality of life research. Social reporting - according to an early definition by Wolfgang Zapf - aims at providing information on social structures and processes and on preconditions and consequences of social policy, regularly, in time, systematically, and autonomously (Zapf 1977a: 11). In a less ambitious way, one may define social reporting simply as a more or less institutionalized collection and presentation of data which enable the evaluation of living conditions and well-being of the population and their changes over time. Thus, social reporting generates quantitative information and empirically based knowledge to be used for the purposes of self-reflection of a single society or a group of societies like the European Union. As a specific mode of production, dissemination, and presentation of socially relevant knowledge, social reporting today is well established within the information systems of many nation states and within international and supranational organizations, like the OECD, the European Union and the United Nations. In Europe there are now only very few countries left, which do not conduct any sort of comprehensive and regular social reporting at the national level (Figure 1). Some of the most well known reports, e.g. the British Social Trends, the Dutch Social and Cultural Report, and the French Donnés Sociales - are now being published since about 30 years. On the other hand, in some countries, like Portugal, Switzerland or the Czech Republic, comprehensive social reports have been published only recently. Interestingly enough, the United States as the society where the social indicators movement evolved and some of the first social reporting activities took place, failed to establish a regular and continuously published national social report so far. Although Towards a Social Report a prototype of an American social report, which had been developed by Mancur Olson on behalf of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was published as early as in 1969, the American president did not take up the 14
15 idea of establishing a regular annual report, as it was requested as part of the so-called Mondale Initiative (Booth, 1992). Also the series of reports published under the title Social Indicators has been discontinued after the latest issue in Today there are several non-official publications serving the demand for social reporting in the U.S. as for example the report Social Health of the Nation (Miringoff/Miringoff, 1999) or Calvert- Henderson Quality of Life Indicators (Henderson/Lickerman/Flyn, 2000) 16. National social reports for European countries Figure 1 Country/Institution Title First Latest Period Edition Edition Austria Sozialstatistische Daten /5 years Statistisches Zentralamt Czech Republic Ten years of rebuilding capitalism ? Institute of Sociology Czech society after 1989 (J. Vecernik/P. Mateju (eds.) Denmark Levelikår I Danmark years Danmarks Statistics / Socialforskningsinstituttet Germany Datenreport years Statistisches Bundesamt with WZB and ZUMA France Données Sociales years Institut Nationale de la Statistique et des Economique Great Britain Social Trends year Central Statistical Office Hungary Social Report years Tarki English English Italy Sintesi della Vita Sociale Italiana Instituto Nationale di Statistica La situatione del paese year CENSIS Rapporto sulla situazione sociale del paese year Luxembourg Recueil D Etudes Sociales 1997? CEPS/Instead Netherlands Social and Cultural Report years Social and Cultural Planning Office English 1998 Norway Sosialt Utsyn years Statistics Norway English Edition 2000 Norges Offentlige Utredniger Levekå i Norge ? Portugal Portugal Social ? Instituto Nacional de Estatistica Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, Situacao Social em Portugal, 1960/ ? Universidade Lisboa Spain Indicadores Sociales ? Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Panoramica Social ? Sweden Perspectiv på Välfärden 1987 Erratically Statistics Sweden Välfärd och Ojämlikhet 1997? Switzerland Sozialbericht ? Ch. Suter (ed.) 15
16 Canada has become a centre of diverse social monitoring and reporting activities in recent years, although a regularly published comprehensive social report does not yet exist at the national level 17. However, there are not only reporting activities at the local and provincial levels, such as the Portrait Social du Quebec (Institut de la Statistique Quebec, 2001), but also recent initiatives to promote social reporting and quality of life measurement and research by organizations like the Canadian Policy Research Networks and the Canadian Council on Social Development, leaving alone diverse academic activities 18. But even outside Europe and North America social reporting is well established by now. In recent years Australia saw several new initiatives in social reporting. In 1994 the Australian Bureau of Statistics published Australian Social Trends as the first edition of an annual series which aims to monitor changes in Australian social conditions over time. In 2001 the Australian Bureau of Statistics issued a publication on Measuring Wellbeing (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001), which is supposed to provide a framework for Australian social statistics in each area of social concern. Also New Zealand has released a first national social report in 2001 (Ministry of Social Policy New Zealand, 2001). Starting in the early nineties a Social Panorama of Latin America has already been published several times by the United Nations Economic Commission. Indicator South Africa: The Barometer of Social Trends is a quarterly publication by the Center for Social and Developmental Studies of the University of Natal, monitoring the far reaching transformations of the South African society. And not the least there are some interesting social reporting activities in Japan, mainly by the Economic Planning Agency of the Japanese government. Even in China some projects focusing on quality of life monitoring have been established recently. Of course, these are only some examples, which by no means are supposed to form a complete list of such reporting efforts. In addition to social reports presenting a comprehensive view of living conditions and quality of life in a society, there are also domain or group specific reports, which are being published in many countries regularly. Such reporting activities include reports on family life, the health situation, education or poverty and on social groups like the elderly, young people, women and children. If one regards the successful spread of national social reporting as a process of diffusion of an innovation within the system of societal information, certain regularities may be detected. Looking at Europe it seems 16
17 that the establishment of national social reporting obviously was promoted best under the preconditions of an articulated welfare-state policy, an interventionist orientation of government, innovative statistical agencies, and geographical centrality (Rothenbacher, 1993; Habich/Noll, 1994). In addition the process of European integration, but also processes of economic integration and political cooperation in other parts of the world had a significant impact on the further development of social reporting. And as we can see looking at the publication of social reports in Hungary, the Czech Republic and other former socialist countries, it seems to be the case that with political liberalization and the transition to market economies, the development of social reporting has gained additional momentum in those countries as well. Supranational organizations took up social reporting early and today they still continue to be among the most important actors in this field. The OECD Program of Work on Social Indicators (OECD, 1982) and the System of Social and Demographic Statistics of the United Nations (1975) have heavily influenced modern social reporting. The OECD, however, failed to convert its ambitious concepts into a regular reporting system. The early OECD program on social indicators was cancelled in the mid-1980s after the first and final publication of the report Living Conditions in OECD Countries. However, the OECD has meanwhile taken up its social indicator activities again and has published recently a new report Society at a Glance OECD Social Indicators (OECD, 2001a). Related reporting activities by the OECD concern the measurement and monitoring of human and social capital (OECD, 2001b) as well as sustainable development (OECD, 2001c). At present, the diverse activities of the United Nations and its special organizations are concentrated on global observations of social or human development. Besides the World Bank Reports, the Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Program are of particular interest (UNDP, 2001). Especially the effort to use the Human Development Index as a summary measure of societal development, offering an integrated view across different dimensions of the level of living, has attracted attention and triggered off a new academic debate on the general possibilities, but also the advantages and shortcomings of composite measures of quality of life and social development (Hagerty et al., 2001; Noll, 2002a). 17
18 In contrast to the United Nations and the OECD, the European Community has taken up social reporting at least in the beginning in a rather pragmatic manner. The series Social Indicators for the European Community published by Eurostat in three editions from 1977 to 1984 was replaced in 1991 by the annual report Social Portrait of Europe. Since 1998 Eurostat publishes a pocketbook on Living Conditions in Europe, presenting a selection of key indicators. Even closer to the ideal of a social report comes the Social Situation Report, an annual collaborative report by Eurostat and the European Commission, published the first time in the year This report attempts to provide a holistic view of population and social conditions as a background to social policy development and establishes links with community policies in the social field such as the European Employment Strategy (Eurostat/European Commission, 2000: 5). There is clear evidence, that the authorities of the European Union are giving new priority to social indicators and social reporting not the least as a consequence of the stronger emphasis that is placed on the social dimension as part of the processes of European integration. The improvement of living conditions and the quality of life in its member states is among the main concerns and policy goals of the European Union, as has been stated for example in the Maastricht Treaty 19. Accordingly, the availability of appropriate knowledge and systematic information on individual and societal well-being within and across European societies is of crucial importance to enhance the European integration and the cohesion between member states and thus to create the Social Europe of the 21st century. The available reports demonstrate that social reporting is characterized by a variety of conceptual approaches, reporting schemes, actors, and institutional solutions. Obviously, there is not just one generally agreed-upon model, but a variety of more or less successful and convincing variants. The agents of social reporting are for the most part statistical offices, but also include special planning agencies, ministries, associations (e.g. trade unions), and professional institutions. The available reports thus differ in analytical depth, sophistication of methods, and style of presentation. 18
19 4.2. Uses of Social Indicators and Social Reporting: Enlightenment and Information for Policy Making As seen from the retrospective, the success of social indicators research and social reporting is more striking in the field of general enlightenment than in the production of technical expert knowledge or the provision of special planning intelligence for policy makers. The ideas of using social indicators and social reporting to contribute to a rationalization of the political process, to set goals and priorities, to evaluate political programs, and to develop early warning systems have at least partially proven to be too ambitious. According to a recent suggestion by Brown and Corbett, five basic policyrelevant uses of social indicators may be distinguished, which they consider as a hierarchical typology of uses which incur progressively exacting demands: description, monitoring, setting goals, outcomes-based accountability and evaluation (Brown/Corbett, 1997: iii). While social indicators and social reports have quite successfully been used as description and monitoring tools, their application and use in the latter fields is still insufficient if not problematic 20. In the early stages of social indicators and quality of life research, the complexity of the policy making processes has been underestimated and the relevance of empirical information on the changes of societies for political action has been judged too optimistically. The believe of some advocates of social indicators research and social reporting that what gets measured gets done...makes a nice slogan, but is not entirely true (Cobb/Rixford, 1998: 23). In her analysis of the use of knowledge in public policy, Judith Innes came to the following conclusion: The failure was more due to an overly simplistic view of how and under what conditions knowledge influences policy, than to, as some observers suggested, a fundamental conflict between the worlds of knowledge and public action (Innes 1990, p. 430). But obviously, an instrumental or technocratic model which pro-poses a direct demand on the part of politics for scientific information in order to solve policy problems does not provide us with an appropriate view of this link. As it seems, a model of enlightenment according to which social science is rather indirectly connected with politics, is much more realistic. In this sense it is only consequential that social indicators research and social reporting today is assigned a less ambitious and less direct function as a provider of information. According to Vogel (1990: 441) social reporting belongs to the democratic infrastructure and has a special political function. To put it simply, social reporting places welfare issues on the political 19
20 agenda. It supplies material to the public debate, influencing the media and, indirectly, the administration. If we are going to distinguish three ways of affecting public policy - problem definition, policy choice and program monitoring (MacRae, 1985) - the role of social reporting so far obviously focuses on that of problem definition, e.g. on the identification of new problems or challenging and changing existing definitions of problems Recent Trends in Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research During the past three decades the fields of social indicators and quality of life research have undergone various cycles of growing and declining attention and activity levels. Obviously, the interest in these fields and respective research and reporting activities have been increasing again considerably during the nineties and at the turn of the century. According to Esping-Andersen (2000: 1), this was partially due to dissatisfaction with the kind of indicator and monitoring approach that ensued under the aegis of the United Nations, the... OECD and the World Bank, and in part by the widespread recognition that the terrain of social welfare has changed dramatically in recent decades. Additional reasons for the renewed interest may be found in the new objectives of societal development like sustainability and social cohesion and the need for respective monitoring tools, the processes of globalization and internationalization and the popularity of benchmarking at different levels, new models of governance and a trend towards evidence based policy making practices, to mention just a few. Recent developments reflect and overcome to some degree critical views of traditional social indicators research as they have been expressed for example by Esping-Andersen (2000) or Cobb/Rixford (1998) and Cobb (2000). Esping-Andersen has criticized the Keynesian-inspired ideas of welfare monitoring that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s (Esping-Andersen, 2000: 1) as being atheoretical and purely descriptive, overly static and unhistorical and to be based mainly on discrete aggregate measures designed to follow trends. This view of traditional social indicators research may certainly be challenged and trend monitoring based on aggregated measures still seems to play an important role among other monitoring functions. On the other hand, more recent approaches are frequently using microdata bases, including longitudinal data as for example provided by household panel and life history studies, which to some 20
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- What exactly is ModernPhoenix?
- What does membership involve?
- Who puts this website together?
- Do you know who built or designed my house?
- I would like to buy a modern home. Can you help me?
- I have $xxx,xxx to spend on a house. Where should I buy?
- Do you have any inside tips on good deals right now?
- Who are some real estate agents that specialize in midcentury modern?
- I know this neighborhood you would love. Can I tell you about it?
What exactly is ModernPhoenix?
ModernPhoenix.net is an online archive of classic midcentury modern domestic architecture and modern contemporary designs that celebrate what is unique about Phoenix as a place to live. We document not just single houses in isolation, but entire neighborhoods where modernism has survived and thrived through the difficult temptation of bulldozing. The founding editors are not real estate agents, architects, or any other kind of folks that have a commercial stake in the site's success. We are merely modernism appreciators with a documentarian twist, and are attempting to fill a gap that mainstream media is unlikely to cover by being inclusive of all types of Modern housing, from the derelict to the undiscovered to the divine.
We also cover other forms of midcentury and modern contemporary design, including interior design, furniture and fabrication methods, graphic design, landscaping and fine art. ModernPhoenix is the internet's only website devoted to development of the Modern design lifestyle in Arizona.
What does membership involve?
Membership is free, and puts you on our register of Modernism lovers in Phoenix. Members enjoy interacting with each other on our message boards, receiving quarterly e-mail updates on what's new at the website, participation in our annual neighborhood home tours, and where appropriate a free listing of your business in our Modern Links section.
With a current average viewership of over 600 individual visits per day, being an active member is the easiest and most inexpensive local PR and advertising you'll ever run across.
Not a member yet? Sample some of our best Message Board discussions ever and join up now!
Do you know who built or designed
my house?
Hard to say without a photograph, but sometimes an address and cross streets will help. Post your question including that information on our message boards and someone knowledgeable might chime in. It is advised you post the boards to ask the collective as our own personal knowledge is still quite limited, it is only through the network we grow stronger. Please do not pose this question to the site owners through email — they will not answer questions best posed to the community first.
I would like to buy a modern home.
Can you help me?
Beyond the information presented on this website, no, we can't personally help. That's the job of a real estate agent, and the best ModernPhoenix can do is refer you to one of our members. We encourage you to use the resources at hand at ModPhx — almost everything we know is posted there in some form or another. You can get some of your questions answered by joining our message boards and posting your questions there. We may personally answer, or someone else might chime in.
The sheer volume of personal requests we receive for help is part of why the message boards were developed as a community effort. It is advised that you read both the General Discussion of Modernism in Phoenix and the Marketplace boards before making a post on the boards yourself — your question may have already been answered in the recent past. There is a Search feature at the top of every message board page that will help you access topics of your interest.
The Marketplace posts the hottest known (and unknown!) modern properties that you should check out.
I have $xxx,xxx to spend on a house.
Where should I buy?
Without knowing much about you as an individual and your lifestyle, income, desires, needs, family, aesthetic, budget, etc, this is a very difficult question to answer. Ask your real estate agent or the good folks on our message boards after disclosing all the criteria above. Whomever is available to give their opinion at that time gladly will, based on current market conditions.
Do you have any inside tips for
any good deals right now?
Check the Marketplace section of our message boards. Any good deal we, our members and member agents come across is posted there.
Who are some real estate agents that specialize in midcentury modern?
Visit our links page for links to modern-savvy agents in the right hand column. Preferred agents are ModPhx members Velocity Group, Tiffany and Shawn Danley, The Real Estate Twins, Mercedes de Oro and Scott Jarson for their involvement in our ModPhx movement online. Non-member agents are also recommended there based on the consistent quality and range of their listings.
I know this modern neighborhood
you would love. Can I tell you about it?
Absolutely. This is the kind of mail we love. We want to hear all about it through text and/or pictures. A great place to make sure your report is heard by more than just one person is to post your report in the General Discussion area of our message boards. You can also send your photos to us and if they're sharp enough we'll make a whole web page of them with a credit or link back to your business.
What is all the fuss about Sunnyslope?
Oh, nothing. [Psssst. Mail us for more information if you're serious about Sunnyslope.]
What does "active membership" mean?
An active member is a member who checks in with us on social media and on the message boards then responds to the posts to exchange information and build local design consciousness. Even if the majority of your posts are in the Marketplace section, we welcome your active participation. If you choose not to be active, that's okay. But active members are the lifeblood of this group -- the more we share, the more we all gain.
We've heard what's in it for you,
which is intangible. What's in it for me?
Exposure. Credibility. Community. ModernPhoenix is your mainline to the local audience and consumer base that wants and needs to know about your products and services. Join ModernPhoenix and you have immediate access to over 4500 members to announce your projects, good press, sales, MLS listings, and services. Plus, where else do you get to talk about that sweet ranch you saw on 106th avenue that somebody should snatch up? Matching the right person with the right home, art, installation or interior design they love is half the fun.
How do I get listed as a service on your site?
One of the fastest ways to do this is by registering to become a member and include your URL in your member profile. If your service is directly related to Modernsim you may make an introductory post in out Marketplace area. Please read the Terms of Service for that area before using it. Another area that we list links to services are our links.htm and architects.htm pages. These lists are curated by the site owners. Getting listed on these pages takes longer, as we need to review the relevance of your service to the Modern Movement. If the relevance of your service is not readily apparent (such as an ice cream shop), or marginal (such as an architectural firm that has not yet built in the Modernist spirit), we may reserve the right to not list you on our pages. For marginal listings we also assess your commitment to the community and determine if you are committed to the movement in other ways. Since signing up to be a member and using the Marketplace provide instant self-service for getting a listing, updates to our web pages currently are made only a few times a year.
How can I return the favor for this great resource?
Tell your friends, definitely. Advertise on ModernPhoenix. Link back to us on your own website. Offer our members a 20% off printable coupon on our message boards. :-D But most of all, the best way to show your appreciation is to participate in the community or even contribute an article. YOU are our greatest source of content and community knowledge.

subset: commoncrawl


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Today's Devotional
The OneRead Galatians 6:1-3 and consider the importance of helping other believers in Jesus.
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Tell me what you will be serving your vegiterians or what you served them at your wedding?(15 Posts)
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