Livskvalitet

Livskvalitet, translated as quality of life, is a multidimensional concept used to describe the overall well-being and life satisfaction of individuals or populations. It encompasses physical health, mental well-being, social relationships, environmental conditions, and economic security, as well as subjective judgments about happiness and life satisfaction. The term is used in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish discourse and appears in research across health, social policy, urban planning, and economics.

Quality of life can be studied from subjective and objective perspectives. Subjective QoL relies on individuals’ self-reports of how satisfied they are with life and how they feel emotionally. Objective indicators include measurable conditions such as life expectancy, income, education, housing quality, employment, and access to clean air and safe neighborhoods. Researchers often combine these approaches to form composite measures.

Common measurement tools include instruments like the WHOQOL family of questionnaires, which assess perceived quality of life across domains such as physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, and environment. Other approaches include health-related quality of life measures like the SF-36, and shorter scales such as EUROHIS-QOL. The OECD Better Life Index combines domains including housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance to compare well-being across countries.

Policy relevance centers on using livskvalitet to balance economic growth with well-being, emphasizing social equity, environmental quality, and access to services. Limitations include subjectivity, cultural differences in reporting, adaptation effects, and challenges in cross-cultural comparability.