Methodological aspects of assessing the subjective perception of the quality of life of the region's population

Quality of life is a complex, multidimensional synthetic category that integrates various aspects of life, including subjective ones, making it difficult to measure in many ways. At the same time, the combination of many different components in one integral category allows usto correctly assess the trends in the development of social well-being in the country. Thus, the objectives of the study were the development and testing of methods of index evaluation of subjective perception of quality of life. The background of the methodology is a hierarchical system which is a “tree” of properties, where on the top there is the most general category - quality of life, the second level is taken by basic aspects of life, the third level consists of a set of more specific properties. The assessment of quality of life is based on a comparison of self-assessments of the level of satisfaction with certain aspects of life and the degree of their importance in such a way that the level of satisfaction with a certain side of life is weighted by an appropriate coefficient of importance. The empirical basis of the study was the results of the sociological survey “Quality of life” conducted by the Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Vologda region in 2016. The main conclusion of the survey was that the region’s population estimate their quality of life as low. It is revealed that the self-assessment of the quality of life is most influenced by marital status and the presence of minor children. Thus, the highest estimates of quality of life belong to the married region’s residents, the presence of children has a positive impact on their self-assessments of the quality of family life, spending free time, health and sense of security. The results obtained are useful in expanding the analysis of socio-economic inequality, social tension and instability.