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Social Indicators Research
Published in: Social Indicators Research 2/2015

01-04-2015

An Analysis of the Relative Importance of Components in Measuring Community Wellbeing: Perspectives of Citizens, Public Officials, and Experts

Authors: Yunji Kim, Youngwha Kee, Seung Jong Lee

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 2/2015

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Abstract

Governments are showing a growing interest in community wellbeing and its measurement. While there have been numerous efforts to measure community wellbeing, current measurement systems are limited as they tend to adopt a narrow perspective of community wellbeing factors based on a top-down fashion. The purpose of this study is to empirically test the differences among citizens, public officials, and experts in relative importance of community wellbeing factors. Data were collected through a binary comparison survey that asked respondents to compare the relative importance of community wellbeing factors on a 9 point scale. We used the Analytic Hierarchy Process for analysis and the results show that citizens, public officials, and experts give different priorities to community wellbeing factors. In decreasing order of importance, citizens and public officials both give the highest priority to physical health, household income, and employment while experts chose employment, household income, and physical health. Furthermore, relative importance rankings differed among citizens depending on age, gender, and years of community involvement. These findings indicate that current community wellbeing measurements that fail to acknowledge different weighting schemes may be biased. We suggest the need for a deliberative model of community wellbeing measurement.
previous article Beyond GDP: Conceptual Grounds of Quantification. The Case of the Index of Economic Well-Being (IEWB)
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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
We use the terms happiness, quality of life, and wellbeing without distinction here to refer to an increasing attention to people's lives, above and beyond aggregate economic growth, from the public sector. To be clear, this is not to imply that these terms are or should be used synonymously. For a more in-depth discussion of distinctions among these terms see Raibley (2012).
 
2
We consulted the following sources for literature review: Kim and Lee (2013), Land et al. (2012), Phillips (2005), Redefining Progress (2006), Sirgy et al. (2004), (2006), (2007), (2009), (2011), (2013). The list was finalized at the 2012 International Forum on Community Wellbeing, Seoul, South Korea.
 
3
Consistency ratio (CR) is a measure of how consistent an individual is in his or her response. For example, if a respondent gives a higher score to choice A than B, and a higher score to choice B than C, he should also give a higher score to choice A than C. A smaller CR value indicates greater consistency. CR is calculated by dividing the consistency index (CI) by the random index RI). CI = (λmax − n)/(n − 1) where λmax is the largest eigenvalue of the pair wise comparison matrix and n is the number of items being compared. RI is the average value of CI for randomly generated pair wise comparison matrices.
 
4
Several studies have pointed to the structural mismatch within the labor market; high supply of workers with higher education degrees who desire positions in large corporations (e.g. Samsung, LG) and high demand in blue collar or smaller firms (see Fackler 2009). According to Korea's Economic Activity Census, youth unemployment rate was 9.1 % in February 2013. While this is a relatively low youth unemployment rate compared to other OECD countries (2012 average unemployment rate for 15–24 year olds: 16.3 %), they are considered high compared to past youth unemployment rates in Korea which were steady around 5 % in the 1990s. Youth unemployment also a big issue across the OECD countries (see The Economist 2013; Inman 2013).
 
5
South Korea has a large private tutoring market where most students depend on private tutors for high performance on tests and college admissions, rather than the public education system (see Crott 2013; Ripley 2013).
 
6
Female labor force participation rates remain low in Korea. According to the Korea Economic Activity Survey, the 2012 labor force participation rate was 49.9 % for females above age 15. This rate is significantly lower than the OECD average of 70.7 % (2010, females age 15–64).
 
7
All questionnaires were written in Korean. This is a sample of questionnaire distributed to citizens. Questionnaires for public officials and experts were identical to the citizen version except for the last question. For public officials and experts, this question was replaced with a question asking for years of work experience as a public official and experience as an expert, respectively.
 
8
In Korea, multicultural families is a term used to refer to multiracial and/or multiethnic families. The majority of such families are made up of a Korean husband and a non-Korean wife from China or Vietnam. These families have been identified with high rates of domestic violence and social exclusion.
 
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Metadata
Title
An Analysis of the Relative Importance of Components in Measuring Community Wellbeing: Perspectives of Citizens, Public Officials, and Experts
Authors
Yunji Kim
Youngwha Kee
Seung Jong Lee
Publication date
01-04-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 2/2015
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0652-4

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