Abstract
There is a growing consensus on the need to combine objective and subjective measures in order to measure quality of life by using a wide range of economic, social and environmental issues. In the international context, Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) is among the institutions that more have invested in collecting subjective data concerning people’s attitudes, values and expectations, by introducing questions to evaluate the subjective well-being in population surveys.
Since 1993, the multipurpose household survey ‘Aspects of Daily Life’ gathers annually information on satisfaction of the Italian population aged 14 and over (every year the sample included about 40,000 individuals). In particular, the questions concern the satisfaction over the past year with five aspects: finances, health, family relationships, friend relationships and leisure time. The answers are given on a four-label scale: ‘very much’, ‘fairly’, ‘a little’ and ‘not at all’ satisfied.
The aim of this chapter is to study the structure and dynamics of the satisfaction exploiting the wide set of information provided by the survey over time (1993–2009). In order to do this, a multiway approach for comparative descriptive analysis was used and a three-way data analysis was applied on the available matrices (individuals, variables and time). Two kinds of analyses were conducted: the first matrix was built by aggregating individuals by gender and age and the second by aggregating individuals by territory (Italian regions).
The results showed the presence of a strong and stable structure over time, with a first general factor representing the overall satisfaction (cognitive aspect) and a second factor depending on the particular aggregation of individuals and on some areas of satisfaction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
An interesting point of view about the inductive value of the exploratory analysis and the reunification of these to probabilistic inference analysis in a broader integrated approach is available in Coppi (1995).
References
Allardt, E. (1973). About dimensions of welfare—Research group for comparative sociology (Research Report No. 1). Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
Bolasco, S. (1999). Analisi multidimensionale dei dati. Roma: Carocci.
Christoph, B., & Noll, H.-H. (2003). Subjective well-being in the European Union during the 90’s. Social Indicators Research, 64(1), 521–546.
Coppi, R. (1995). Il nuovo ruolo del metodo statistico nelle Scienze Sociali secondo l’approccio strategico integrato. In Strategie d’Analisi dei Dati nella Ricerca Sociale e Metodologia Integrata, a cura di Memoli R., Milano, Franco Angeli.
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.
Escofier, B., & Pagès, J. (1998). Analyses factorielles simples et multiples. Paris: Dunod.
Fabbris, L. (1997). Statistica multivariata. Analisi statistica dei dati. Milano: McGraw-Hill.
Heady, E., Veenhoven, R., & Wearing, A. (1991). Top-down versus bottom-up theories of subjective well- being. Social Indicators Research, 24, 81–100.
Istat, Annual publication. (1993–1996, 2005–2009). La vita quotidiana, collana informazioni, Roma.
Istat, Annual publication. (1997–2000). Cultura socialità e tempo libero, collana informazioni, Roma.
Michalos, A. C. (1985). Multiple discrepancy theories (MDT). Social Indicators Research, 16, 347–413.
Rampichini, C., & Schifini D’Andrea, S. (1997). A hierarchical ordinal probit model for the analysis of life satisfaction in Italia. Social Indicators Research, 44, 41–69.
Schifini D’Andrea, S. (1999). Qualità della vita: misure, teorie, modelli. In AA. VV. Contesti di qualità della vita. Problemi e misure. Franco Angeli, Milano.
Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J. (2009, September 14). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP).
Stones, M. J., Hadjistavropoulos, T., Tuuko, H., & Kozma, A. (1995). Happiness has traitlike and statelike properties: A reply to Veenhoven. Social Indicators Research, 36(2), 129–144.
Veenhoven, R. (1991). Is happiness relative? Social Indicators Research, 24, 1–34.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix
Appendix
See Tables 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, and 7.10.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Montecolle, S., Orsini, S. (2012). Satisfied or Dissatisfied? An Analysis of the Results of ‘Aspects of Daily Life’ Italian Survey on Households. In: Maggino, F., Nuvolati, G. (eds) Quality of life in Italy. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 48. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3898-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3898-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-3897-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-3898-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)