ERIC Number: ED052028
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1968
Pages: 48
Abstractor: N/A
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Quality of Life in the United States--An Excursion into the New Frontier of Socio-Economic Indicators.
Wilson, John Oliver
The development of a set of social indicators with which to assess interregional differences in the quality of life in the United States is the goal of this report. Prompted by the observation that there are increasing signs of discontent with the continued use of traditional measures of economic, political, and social progress-per capita income and gross national product-Mr. Wilson states the national income and product accounts were not conceptually designed to measure changes in our total socio-economic environment. For these reasons it is imperative the new frontier of social indicators be explored. The concept of social indicators as aggregate or representative welfare measures is presented and the procedure for developing them is reviewed. States are selected as the geographical unit of analysis and the general areas of social concern for which social indicators were developed follows recommendations of the Commission on National Goals (1960): individual status, individual equality, state and local government, education, economic growth, technological change, agriculture, living conditions, and health and welfare. Problems of weighting the statistics are discussed together with evaluation of the data. Education and equality of racial opportunity are analyzed at length with numerous tables showing relevant statistics. References are included. (BL)
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Authoring Institution: Midwest Research Inst., Kansas City, MO.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A