It has been found that the mean value of life satisfaction is the highest for rich, followed by middle and. The correlation coefficient between objective and subjective dimensions of QOL has not been found to be that strong.
Guwahati: Description of the Study Area
Methodology
Quality of life and environment
Summary of findings, conclusions and policy suggestions
Introduction
Background
In the early and mid-1960s, however, the issues of use values, social welfare and well-being reemerged. The political debates of the time argued that public poverty and suffering were the social costs of economic growth.
Quality of life (QOL) –a definition
In the works of Szalai (1980), quality of life refers to the degree of excellence or satisfactory character of life. There is also an opinion that the phrase "quality of life" (Pacione, 2003a) varies considerably, as it is used in different ways, but generally refers to the conditions of the environment in which people live (air and water). pollution or, for example, poor housing) or on some characteristics of the people themselves (such as health or educational attainment).
Objective and subjective QOL
It is a dynamic concept in the sense that the thrust area of QOL has changed over time. Therefore, it is important to consider the subjective well-being of the people concerned.
QOL and human development
The knowledge variable is a combination of adult literacy – the percentage of adults who can read and write – and years of schooling achieved by the adult population. Another obstacle in the effective use of human development or capabilities approach in the assessment of QOL is the abstractness of the principles involved.
The problem
The rapid expansion of the city has led to the random growth of buildings in the fields and on the hills. As a result of increased trade and commerce activities along with increased vehicular population and rapid urbanization, the level of pollution has also increased in the city (PCBA, 2007).
Objectives
Hypotheses
Study area and reference period
Methodology
Outline of the work
This chapter also includes the problem definition, objectives, hypothesis, field of study and reference period, methodology, outlines of the work, scope and limitations of the research. It also proposes a number of measures to improve the quality of life in Guwahati and ends with the conclusion of the study.
Scope of the study
It describes the nature of the information collected and the statistical methods used to analyze data. This chapter attempted to investigate whether factors of quality of life vary between different income groups and between different areas.
Limitations of the study
Literature survey shows that QOL is a broad issue that can be approached from various perspectives. Therefore, these studies have been organized by various authors in such a way as to give a comprehensive idea about various dimensions of KVL, its relation with environment and conceptual frameworks used to conduct KVL research.
Studies on objective verses subjective QOL
It was found that the standard of living influenced QOL the most significantly, followed by job satisfaction. QOL was found to be the worst in Delhi and Varanasi offers the best.
QOL and environment
Air pollution was found to play a statistically significant role as a predictor of cross-country and cross-temporal differences in subjective well-being. QOL was found to be an important factor in the residential location decision.
Conceptual frameworks used in QOL studies
- Bubolz’s ecological perspective
- Camagni’s model of sustainable city
- Shafer’s scheme
- Metabolism model
- Detroit Area Study
- Neighbourhood satisfaction model
- Capability approach
- Rogerson’s environmental QOL
Sen (1993) has introduced the capability approach, which has brought about revolutionary change in the concept of human development studies. The author extended the human ecosystem approach to determine how greenway amenities contribute to QOL in the U.S. At the same time, it has been noted that no comprehensive QOL survey is available in the Guwahati setting.
However, none of the studies have explicitly taken QOL into account in relation to the living environment.
Proposed framework for the present study
The term subjective urban QOL focuses on the idea of satisfaction with urban life (McCrea, 2006). In the context of the present study, subjective QOL was defined as the sum of satisfaction with domains (Misajon, 2002) which is a simple additive model (Rojas, 2006). It is a bottom-up approach and assessment of KVL using this framework has been proposed to be carried out in Guwahati city at local scale and household level. The conceptual framework adopted for this QOL research was discussed in the previous chapter.
A case study is proposed in the city of Guwahati to conduct the research as proposed in the conceptual framework.
Guwahati: A preface
The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief description of the study area. The Archeological Survey1 traces the city to the 6th century AD. It was the capital of the mythological kings Narakasur and Bhagadatta as found in the Mahabharata2. Some historians say that the current name 'Guwahati' derives from its association with the abundance of areca nut trees and betel vines.
It was called so because hills surrounded the place from all sides and it looked like a cave (Das, 2005).
Physical structure and climate
Another opinion says that Guwahati is derived from the term "Guhar Haati" which means a place full of caves.
Governance
Economy
- Industrialization
- Trade and commerce
A large number of small industries have sprung up in and around the city haphazardly. There is no centralized market complex as a result of shops being established in an unplanned manner all over the city. These areas take up valuable space in the heart of the city that could otherwise be used more productively.
Running Public Call Office and beauty salons are some other business activities in the city.
Transport and communication
Educational infrastructure
Health infrastructure
Social structure and demography
It can be attributed to migration of population due to shifting of capital from Shillong to Guwahati and expansion of GMC area in 1974 to 257.09 sq. But the sex ratio of Guwahati is much lower than the sex ratio of the state of Assam (935) . In this context, it should be mentioned that the highest percentage of the population is below six years followed by the population in the age group of 25-29 (Govt of India, 2001a).
Living conditions in Guwahati
- Drinking water facilities
- Sanitation
- Increase in the number of high rise buildings
- Problem of traffic congestion
- Problem of water logging
- Emergence of slum area
The garbage generated in the city is also dumped just next to the drainage system which causes loss of flow capacity of the drains. Due to such heavy pressure, most of the roads remain congested during peak hours. In addition to the increase in the number of vehicles, congestion is also due to the fact that there is not enough parking at any of the above roads.
The number of people living in these slums is 1.6 lakhs, which constitutes 20 percent of the population of Guwahati.
Status of environment
- Water pollution
- Air pollution
- Noise pollution
- Problems of solid waste
It has also been found that the drainage system in the city is not well structured. The intensity and nature of urban air pollution has increased in recent years in Guwahati. The effectiveness of the city's MSW removal system has been found to be woefully poor.
The procedure used for empirically validating the conceptual framework of QOL in the city of Guwahati has been discussed below.
The measurement of quality of life
As mentioned in chapter 2, a conceptual framework has been drawn up to carry out the study. In the study, overall QOL was measured to see how satisfied respondents are when they think about their lives as a whole (Moller, 2001 and Beukes et. al, 1997). Overall QOL has been measured in terms of life satisfaction on a five-point Likert scale.
In this study, secondary information was used to obtain a clear picture of the living situation in the study area.
The survey
- Study area and sampling procedure
- The questionnaire
- Description of relevant variables and justification for their inclusion
- Variables in the domain of physical environment
- Variables in the subjective domain
- Demographic profile
- Attributes of residential area
- Economic condition
- Societal condition
- Life satisfaction and domain satisfaction
In the survey, none of the respondents were found to be illiterate, with 45.6 percent having a graduate degree or more. Regarding additional income, it has been shown that only 29.7 percent of the respondents have access to an additional source of income. In contrast, it has been shown that 91.1 percent of the respondents have never visited the police station.
When asked about general QOL_1, it was found that 51.9 percent of respondents were satisfied with life.
Statistical tools
In the principal component, a set of variables is transformed into some linear combination of the original variables so that the resulting composite variables as a set can have maximum variance under the constraint that the different linear composites are orthogonal to each other. In ranked probit analysis, the probability of an outcome is calculated as a linear function of the independent variables plus a set of intercept points. The quality of the living environment in the urban environment for the people of the world has emerged as an issue of fundamental interest to academic researchers, policy makers and citizens for the first time in human history.
Therefore, in this study, QOL was assessed in urban living environments for the reason that the degraded living environments in cities of the developing countries can pose a serious threat to the survival of humanity (Pacione, 2003b).
Relationship between QOL and environment
Similarly, b3 shows that there is difference in the value of scores of the same factor for high income group compared to low income group. Differences can be found in the value of the factor score for middle income group compared to low income group as. This clearly shows that variation in the value of scores of the factor is not dependent on variation in either area or income groups.
This means that the value of the results of the 'pollution' factor is not affected by a change in area or income.
Comparison between subjective and objective QOL
- Dimensions of subjective QOL
- Dimension of objective QOL
However, it has been established that the change in area or income group cannot affect the 'satisfaction with the environmental condition' factor. Again from table 5.6, it is observed that the satisfaction with the housing situation is the highest for the group with high income. It was found that traffic satisfaction is the lowest in all three locations.
This factor can be labeled as satisfaction with the urban amenities and services available in the locality.
Principal findings
At the same time, the average value of satisfaction from the overall QOL has been found to be the highest in traditional residential areas. From the study of subjective dimension, it has been found that satisfaction from urban facilities and services, livability and environmental quality is a significant factor for QOL. At the same time, a new factor called socio-economic status has been shown to be a significant factor for QOL.
These are satisfaction with urban amenities, material living conditions, susceptibility to flooding and community participation, waste management and socio-economic status were found to be important determinants of quality of life.
Conclusions
QOL satisfaction was found to be better in the traditional and life satisfaction was found to be the lowest for the low-income group. It has also been established that regardless of location or income level, the respondents are very dissatisfied with the traffic situation.
Suggested policy measures
Oswald (1996), "Satisfaction and Comparison Income", Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 2000), "Measuring Instruments and the Quality of Life", Redefining Progess. Ferris (2001), “Quality of life indices for national policy: review and agenda for research”, Social Indicators Research, Vol. 1998), "Unifying liveability and comparison theory: Indian Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 2000), "The development of an instrument to measure quality of life in Mexico City", Social Indicators Research, Vol.
1997), »Hierarchical Ordinal Probit Model for the Analysis of Life Satisfaction:, Social Indicators Research, Vol.44, str.
