Assessment of subjective aspects of the quality of life in the various regions of the Czech Republic

Abstract

The paper is focused on the methodological approaches to assess subjective aspects of the quality of life in the various regions. Besides, directly measurable indicators, which may not always correspond with the quality of life of the individuals in the regions, the subjective aspects of well-being are also in the spotlight. The pilot analysis examined the answers to questions such as: Are you satisfied with the health and social services, the cost of living, safety of public spaces, affordability of housing, or your personal job situation? These answers were used for an assessment of the quality of life in the different regions of the Czech Republic. We used multivariate modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical structure of respondents within the Czech Republic, and for understanding patterns of variation between regions. The principal component analysis (PCA) was used for the general analysis of regional differences. The overall goal of principal component analysis is to reduce the dimensionality of a data set, while simultaneously retaining the information present in the data. The differences were illustrated by cartographic visualization and by scatter plots of the first three principal components. The cluster analysis was used to discover similarities and differences of the quality of life within various regions of the Czech Republic.

Keywords

• quality of life
• regional disparities
• cartographic visualization
• principal component analysis
• cluster analysis
• SAS