IDENTIFYING UNDERLYING FACTORS OF OECD BETTER LIFE INDEX DOMAIN COUNTRY PRIORITIES’ SIMILARITIES THROUGH WARD DATA CLUSTERING
Keywords:
Quality of life, Country quality of life perception, Composite index country weights, Ward hierarchical clustering, OECD BLI.Abstract
This study aims to analyze the national preferences regarding various socio-economic criteria as a measure of national welfare and overall life quality, discover factors potentially serving as reasons for affinity or discrepancies between said preferences through the use of data clustering algorithms. During the analysis different linkage methods were employed, of which some happened to be quite interpretable, seeing as how the results could be attributed to relevant patterns noticeable in the present geo-political, social and economic state of the world, proving existing theories regarding reasons for similarities between nations regarding their perceptions of the term “quality of life”. This study may prove important in a way that it might explain why different countries often have similar hierarchy of preferences towards different domains of quality of life, as well as reassess the role of the economic factors in that matter. The results may be applied in various policies— by understanding what people value most in their lives and the reasons that lead them to such decisions, policymakers may exploit those reasons to increase the perceived level of quality of life, ensuring the publics satisfaction.