User:MeztliG/Standard of living

Standard of Living
Standard of living is the level of wealth, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant and important to take into account because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality of life. Standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outside an individual's personal control, such as economic, societal, political and environmental matters – such things that an individual might consider when evaluating where to live in the world, or when assessing the success of economic policy.

It is affected by factors such as the quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and housing affordability, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, amount of leisure time, access to and quality of healthcare, quality and availability of education, literacy rates, life expectancy, occurrence of diseases, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, access to, quality and affordability of public transportation, national economic growth, economic and political stability, freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety. For the purposes of economics, politics and policy, it is usually compared across time or between groups defined by social, economic or geographical parameters.

Measurement
Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as inflation-adjusted income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality, and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods (such as number of refrigerators per 1000 people), or measurement of health such as life expectancy. It is the ease by which people living in a time or place are able to satisfy their needs and/or wants.

The idea of a 'standard' may be contrasted with the quality of life, which takes into account not only the material standard of living, but also other more intangible aspects that make up human life, such as leisure, safety, cultural resources, social life, physical health, environmental quality issues,as well as happiness and prosperity. The choices that people take in order to make themselves happy and live up to the standard for quality of life, not only affect themselves but everyone else that is present in that society. More complex means of measuring well-being must be employed to make such judgments, and these are very often political and controversial. Even between two nations or societies that have similar material standards of living, quality of life factors may make one of these places more attractive to a given person or group.Because of this, there are many examples that include the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty, right to privacy, and the freedom of religion. The quality of life is determined by factors that people want. Whereas the standard of living is determined by what is available to the public. That is the main difference between these two concepts.

Standard of Life
This idea sounds very similar to standard of living however, it targets something else. The standard of life focuses on the ideals that one as an individual has. These ideals can be morals that person has or even how they behave. One good example is how people set goals and how they reach them. That individual has a set of ideals and their behavior will help them attain that object. This topic ties in with the article in the way that they go hand in hand by demonstrating how the standard of living is affected by what people think what their standard of life is.

Factors that influence the standard of living

 * Economy: When looking at the standards of living in a country, GDP is the most common method of measurement, but can be inaccurate. A country may have a high GDP, therefore a high level of income, with no corresponding increase in living standards. This may be due to the levels of pollution within a country, the absence of leisure time/longer hours worked per person per day, rising levels of crime, obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse etc, or unequal income distribution. In China, which has the second-highest GDP in the world, the levels of pollution are high, causing 1.25 million deaths a year.There may also be what some consider a downside to an economy thriving. This would cause the standard of living to double. By having this, the gap of income inequality can widen, making it hard to get out of that middle class classification and join that high middle class or even upper class.
 * Education: Education is one of the basis of economic development and societal advancement. As a matter of fact, the right to education is one of the factors that may be used to measure the quality of life. In addition to that, not only that investment in education improves human capital, it also increases productivity which therefore increases standard of living. "Productivity has grown more in states with greater growth in the educational attainment of their workforce.” Therefore we can conclude that the higher one’s education attainment the more one is able to work and earn to live a life of quality.Education is also very important to those who are not caucasian males. Women and persons of color are the people who benefit more from this experience, raising their standard of life. Especially if they come from a background with parents that did not receive any education. The power of education attainment in raising one’s income has been growing for decades.
 * Corruption: The standard of living can easily start to plummet when corruption is high. Corruption can highly influence the economy by the misuse of money or authority to negatively and/or illegally achieve certain goals. with a high level of corruption will not flourish or be prosperous. Not only that but with corruption, the natural laws of economy can not exist. These natural laws include supply and demand, self-interest, and competition. In turn, directly effect the standard of living and all around negatively impact society. Health care and education tend to suffer from corruption as well, deteriorating the standard of living even further. The average income of countries with a high level of corruption is around 1/3 of the average income of countries that have less corruption. Countries with less corruption tend to have a lower infant mortality rate and a higher literary rate, around 25%.
 * Poverty: When mentioning the standard of living, poverty is one of the most overlooked factors that influences the standard of living. With the coronavirus pandemic changing the U.S. landscape, millions of families are faced with difficult decisions such as missing a paycheck or risking their families safety. A lack of income in lower-income communities, research has shown the relationship between a lack of income and chronic health such as heart disease, exposure to COVID-19, and diabetes in lower income communities. Due to the lack of resources, this increased the chances of people living in poverty contracting the virus. Poverty is often a byproduct of economic inequality which is connected to the racial divide in income and wealth.  The living or minimum wage plays a part in individuals ability to get basic necessities. In New Zealand it was found that raising the minimum wage to  $20 dollars for two adults who work 60 hours a day and 52 weeks in a year will be able to support themselves and not fall into the poverty category.  However, the minimum wage being $20 will only support a household with two adults with two children and not a single parent household. The reason for increasing the minimum wage is to decrease the gap between the high income and low income groups.
 * Health Care System": There is a strong correlation between standard of living and the quality of healthcare. The quality of healthcare and standard of living are both low in poor developing countries while both are much better in developed countries. According to a report by the World Health Organization, developing countries experience higher levels of inaccurate diagnosis, medication errors, inappropriate treatment, inadequate or unsafe clinical facilities or practices, or providers who lack adequate training and expertise because of their low quality of life.The same report found that in low and middle-income African countries, health care workers were able to make accurate diagnosis only up to three quarters of the time. However, developed countries such as the United States of America with a health care system in place, sometimes do not reap benefits as they should. According to Ryan Nunn, Jana Parsons, and Jay Shambaugh, with the current healthcare system, we are investing a lot more when compared to other countries but still not enjoying better health outcomes. If we were successfully doing this, this would not be the case and one can even argue that the standard of living can increase.