Sustainable development and quality of life in Lithuania compared to other countries.
Streimikiene, Dalia ; Barakauskaite-Jakubauskiene, Neringa
1. Introduction
Today the main issue on policy agenda all over the world is
sustainable development. Sustainable development (SD) is a pattern of
development that aims to meet human needs while preserving the
environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but
also for generations to come. Therefore the sustainable development is
about ensuring a better quality of life for everyone, now and for
generations to come. Sustainable development concept indicates that our
economy, environment and social well-being are interdependent (Ventegodt
et al. 2003). By protecting and enhancing the environment, for its own
sake, and also because a damaged environment will sooner or later hold
back economic development and affect people's quality of life. It
is about ensuring we satisfy people's basic needs, such as
providing warm homes and safe streets and giving people the opportunity
to achieve their potential through education, information,
participation, good health and employment. And it requires a robust
economy to create the wealth that allows needs to be satisfied, now and
in the future.
The term quality of life is usually used to evaluate the general
well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide
range of contexts, including the fields of international development,
healthcare, environment and politics. Quality of life should not be
mixed with the concept of standard of living, which is based primarily
on income. The standard indicators of the quality of life usually
include not only wealth and employment, but also the built environment,
physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time,
crime rate and social belonging. Also frequently with quality of life
are related such issues as freedom, human rights, and happiness (Flynn
et al. 2002).The quality of life can be used as the most general aim of
sustainable development as this aim represents the economic, social and
environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In this term it is
important to assess the quality of life by evaluating the economic,
social and environmental indicators related to quality of life.
Indicators are very useful tool to develop policies and monitor the
effectiveness and results achieved by these policies. Indicators are
tools that measure, simplify and communicate important issues and
trends. They can help people understand the breadth of sustainable
development issues and the relationships between them. Indicators are
useful means of measuring progress, but also valuable tool to raise
awareness of the key issues among the public and policy-makers, and to
help people understand what they themselves need to do.
The main research problem is related with the fact that some
countries do not take into account indicators of quality of life in
their sustainable development strategies and do not use them to assess
progress achieved in terms of sustainable development.
The following hypotheses were raised:
1. Lithuanian national sustainable development strategy does not
address the main indicators of quality of life;
2. The quality of life in Lithuania is low comparing with other
developed countries.
The aim of the paper is to compare Lithuania with other countries
in terms of achievements of sustainable development in quality of life.
The main tasks to achieve this aim:
-- To review sustainable development policy in Lithuania;
-- To discuss the main indicators of quality of life;
-- To compare Lithuania with other countries according the
indicators of quality of life.
In the following chapters the implementation of sustainable
development policy in Lithuania will be briefly addressed; the main
indicators applied all over the world to measure the quality of life
will be discussed and Lithuania will be compared with other countries in
terms of quality of life.
2. Sustainable development in Lithuania
The main long-term planning document--Long-term Lithuanian Economy
Development Strategy was approved in 2002 in Lithuania. It comprises 15
branch strategies. The main principles of sustainable development are
integrated in these strategies. Some of these branch strategies are
directly aimed at interaction between sectors (the factors of social
development and economic factors of employment, economic factors of
environmental protection, tourism development, etc.). Despite a great
integrity of the certain strategies, there is a lack of clear relations
between the aforementioned 15 strategies. In order to solve this problem
the National Strategy of Sustainable Development was adopted in 2003 and
revised in 2009 (Government of Republic of Lithuania 2009). The main
objective of sustainable development in Lithuania remains the same: to
achieve, by 2020, the development level of EU countries of 2003,
according to the indicators of economic and social development as well
as to the efficiency in consumption of resources, and to stay within the
EU's permissible limits, according to the indicators of
environmental pollution, while meeting the requirements of international
conventions to minimize environmental pollution and input into global
climate change (Statistics Lithuania 2011). In order to achieve these
objectives, it is necessary to base future development of the economy on
advanced and more environment-friendly technologies. Thus, the Strategy
puts special emphasis on the design and implementation of technologies
that are based on scientific achievements and knowledge rather than on
resource-intensive technologies. The priorities of the revised EU
Sustainable Development Strategy are the following: climate change and
clean energy production (i.e. when pollutant release, including
greenhouse gases, into the environment is limited), sustainable
transport, sustainable consumption and production, protection and
management of natural resources, public health, social inclusion,
demography and migration, world poverty and sustainable development
challenges. Bearing in mind the aforementioned priorities of the revised
EU Sustainable Development Strategy, two new priorities were added to
the Strategy: sustainable consumption and development cooperation, which
correspond to the priority "Global poverty and sustainable
development challenges", reflecting Lithuania's obligations
for global peace as well as for reduction of disparities between
developed and developing states. Sustainable development indicators for
economical, social and regional development and state of environment are
selected in the strategy for the monitoring of sustainable development
however this system of indicators were not applied for the analysis of
trends and only some targets of sustainable development were set using
these indicators. Approach to integrate sustainable development
indicators into national planning systems should be used with more
extent. 3 principles may be singled out for the development of a system
of indicators for sustainable development strategies.
Moderate and sustainable development of the economic sectors as
well as of regional economies is one of Lithuania's sustainable
development priorities. Uneven economic and social development in the
regions and the growing disparities in social welfare are listed among
the main threats to sustainable development in the EU Sustainable
Development Strategy. Bearing in mind that over the recent years,
economic and social disparities among Lithuanian regions have not
decreased but have kept growing, reduction of the disparities of living
standards between different regions, while maintaining their distinctive
character, is one of the sustainable development priorities of
Lithuania. An extremely important priority of Lithuanian sustainable
development is reduction of the environmental impact of the main
branches of economy (transport, industry, energy, agriculture, housing
and tourism) by increasing their eco-efficiency and inclusion of
environmental concerns into their development strategies.
The following priorities of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy
are important: reduction of threats to human health, mitigation of
global climate change and its impact, protection of biodiversity, and
reduction of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. Although
landscape management problems are not identified in the EU Sustainable
Development Strategy, they are considered to be very significant
priorities in the Strategy due to the importance of landscape protection
and its rational management. Another priority of sustainable development
is public education (including environmental education and promotion of
an environment-friendly lifestyle). Enhancement of a scientific research
role, more effective application of research results as well as design
and implementation of environment-friendly production and information
technologies stand out as other priorities of the Strategy.
The social development issues addressed in Lithuanian SDS are
directly related with the quality of life: employment, poverty and
social exclusion, public health, education and science, preservation of
cultural identity and sustainable consumption issues are the key issues
addressed in the SDS and having impact on quality of life.
The major attention in the Strategy's chapter Social
Development is devoted to the problems of poverty and social exclusion
as well as public health. Since the implementation of the Strategy is
impossible without active public involvement and support, a substantial
part of it is dedicated to the education of the public (as well as
environmental education and promotion of a more environment-friendly
lifestyle), also to the preservation of cultural distinction. The social
sphere also covers the enhancement of research role, more effective use
of research results in the implementation of the main principles of
sustainable development. The long-term objectives of social development
are the following:
-- to promote employment of the population, investments in the
human capital and creation of new high-quality jobs, to ensure equal
opportunities for everyone to participate in the labour market and
public life, and to reinforce social cohesion.
-- to increase personal incomes of the residents, to reduce the
differentiation and poverty of the society, to establish adequate
working conditions, and to achieve effective social security, i.e. to
create favourable conditions for families and to secure social
integration of the socially disadvantaged groups of residents.
-- to improve the living standards of the Lithuanian population;
increasing the life expectancy, i.e. reduction of morbidity, mortality
and disability, especially resulting from accidents and injuries,
circulatory system and oncological diseases and mental health disorders;
and improvement of the accessibility and quality of health care
services.
-- to educate independent, active and responsible members of
society and to develop intellectual potential of the society, so that
knowledge and science may ensure sustainable implementation of economic,
social and environmental objectives.
-- to preserve the Lithuanian language, the ethnic and regional
culture of the Lithuanians, the historical heritage of Lithuanian
culture, as well as the cultural peculiarity of the national communities
residing in Lithuania.
-- to make sure that the growth does not worsen the environmental
quality, giving preference to environment-friendly services and products
that are produced and used with the smallest amount of energy and other
natural resources, without toxic substances and which have the lowest
possible impact on the environment throughout the life-cycle.
As one can notice the targets set in Lithuanian NSD Social
development chapter represent the quality of life. Sustainable
development indicators have been grouped based on the three main
sustainable development sectors: environmental status, economic
development and social development. Such a type of grouping is rather
conditional as a small number of the indicators presented are
trans-sectoral, characterising sector interaction. The indicators of
territorial development are presented separately to reflect the
situation in the counties, municipalities and smaller territorial units.
The sustainable development indicators selected for social
development chapter in SDS are presented in Table 1. The values of
sustainable development indicators for 1995-2010 period are presented in
Table 1.
As one can see from Table 1, the trends of some social development
indicators, related to human health are important to assess progress
achieved towards sustainable development in Lithuania, stipulated
positive trends during 1995-2010, for example, average life expectancy
has grown for man and woman from 63.3 to 67.5 and from 75.1 to 78.6
respectively. Infant mortally has declined from 12.4 to 5 deaths against
1000 births during the same period. Number of deaths caused by traffic
accidents as well as deaths from accidents at work also has decreased
from 24.6 to 13.7 deaths and from 103 to 48 per 1000000 residents
respectively. However some important health indicators directly related
with quality of life--number of deaths from circulatory system diseases
has increased from 669.7 to 697.5 deaths per 1000000 residents. Number
of deaths from cancer also has increased from 208 to 243.5 deaths per
100000 during the same period.
Other social development indicators relevant to quality of life
such as poverty risk level, employment and unemployment rate
haven't change during the same period, as positive trends in 2005
where disrupted by economic crisis of year 2008.
Indicators related to expenditures on research and development,
funds allocated culture, and all indicators related to education showed
the positive trends during 1995-2010.
As one can notice the list of indicators presented in Table 1, is
not complete for the evaluation of quality of life in Lithuania. Some
important indicators related with leisure, safety, crime rate, freedom
etc. are missing. In addition, it is necessary to mention, that no
benchmark indicators were established in Lithuanian SDS strategy,
therefore it is difficult to use these indicators for the assessing
progress, achieved in improvement of quality of life in Lithuania, by
implementing sustainable development. Also these indicators can't
be applied for the comparison of quality of life in Lithuania with other
countries. In the following chapters the indicators of quality of life
applied in other countries and by international institutions will be
discussed and used for the comparison of the quality of life in
Lithuania and other countries.
3. Indicators of quality of life
Indicators of quality of life can be simple and integrated. The
simple indicators covers just one issue of quality of life and complex
indicators consist of several indicators covering several issues of
quality of life.
3.1. Complex indicators to measure quality of life
There are several complex indicators applied by in international
organizations to measure the quality of life. These indicators consist
of several important indicators representing a broad range of indicators
representing the quality of life (Quality of Life Indicators 2009;
Quality of Life Oxfordshire 2009). For 30 years, International
Living's editors and writers have been scoring the world to find
the best places to live or retire to. Every January, 194 countries were
ranked and compared to come up with the list of the places that offer
the best quality of life for people. To produce this annual Index nine
categories are being considered: Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure,
Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk,
and Climate. This involves a lot of number crunching from
"official" sources, including government websites, the World
Health Organization, and The Economist etc. Lithuania has total score
73: Cost of Living 63; Leisure & Culture 68; Economy 48; Environment
81; Freedom 100; Health 80; Infrastructure 56; Risk & Safety 100;
Climate 79. Latvia has score 70 and Estonia -71.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's quality-of-life index is
based on a unique methodology that links the results of subjective
life-satisfaction surveys to the objective determinants of quality of
life across countries. The index was calculated in 2005 and includes
data from 111 countries and territories. The survey uses nine quality of
life factors to determine a nation's score. They are listed below
including the indicators used to represent these factors:
1. Health: Life expectancy at birth (in years). Source: US Census
Bureau.
2. Family life: Divorce rate (per 1,000 population), converted into
index of 1 (lowest divorce rates) to 5 (highest). Sources: UN;
Euromonitor.
3. Community life: Variable taking value 1 if country has either
high rate of church attendance or trade-union membership; zero
otherwise. Source: World Values Survey.
4. Material well being: GDP per person, at PPP in $. Source:
Economist Intelligence Unit.
5. Political stability and security: Political stability and
security ratings. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit.
6. Climate and geography: Latitude, to distinguish between warmer
and colder climates. Source: CIA World Factbook.
7. Job security: Unemployment rate (%.) Source: Economist
Intelligence Unit.
8. Political freedom: Average of indexes of political and civil
liberties. Scale of 1 (completely free) to 7 (unfree). Source: Freedom
House.
9. Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female
earnings. Source: UNDP Human Development Report.
111 countries and territories were included in the 2005 Quality of
Life Index. The quality of life index in Lithuania is 6.033 and country
is ranked as 63. Latvia is ranked as 66 and Estonia as 68.
The UNDP has constructed one of the most used measures when it
comes to welfare, the HDI. This is comprised by indicators for a long
and healthy life (life expectancy at birth), knowledge (adult literacy
rate and gross enrolment ratio) and a decent standard of living (GDP per
capita). The HDI has attracted criticism for not being sensitive to
differences between groups inside a country in the level of human
development (Robeyns 2003). And it has therefore been supplemented with
an index that takes gender equality into consideration, the Gender
related Development Index The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) is
comprised of the same indicators as the HDI, but they are first
calculated separately for men and women and then an index is constructed
that lowers the GDI compared to the HDI according to the level of
unequal distribution between the groups. More simply put, the HDI
adjusted for gender inequality is what comprises the GDI. As a result of
this, the GDI should not be interpreted independent of the HDI. And this
is of course one of the problems, both when it comes to understanding,
and using, the GDI (Bistrom 2010).
Gender disparities in development can be captured by using the
Gender-related development index (GDI) and the gender empowerment
measure (GEM) devised by UNDP (2010). The GEM measures gender inequality
in key areas of economic and political participation and decision
making, such as seats held in parliament, and percentage of managerial
positions held by women. Higher GDP does not always guarantee greater
gender equality. Some developing countries outperform much richer
industrial countries in gender equality in political, economic, and
professional activities. Progress towards gender equality can be
achieved at different income levels and stages of development. These two
measures GDI and GEM are applied to rank countries according to
achievements on gender equality. The GDI seeks to capture achievement in
the same set of indicators included in the HDI--life expectancy,
educational attainment and GDP (Gross domestic product) per capita by
adjusting the HDI for gender inequality. The HDI is an average measure
of basic human development achievements in a country. However the HDI
masks inequality in the distribution of human development across the
population at the country level (Permanyer 2010).
In 2010 Human Development Report (2010) the new measure of gender
inequality is introduced--the 'inequality' adjusted HDI
(IHDI). This is new measure for a large number of countries which takes
into account inequality in all three dimensions of the HDI by
'discounting' each dimension's average value according to
its level of inequality. The IHDI is a measure of the average level of
human development that a country has achieved in the three HDI
dimensions, given the existing inequality in distribution of
achievements and the level of aversion to inequality which is set in
2010 to a low level of 1. When there is no inequality in the HDI
dimensions or no aversion to inequality, the average level of human
development is reflected in the HDI. In this sense, the HDI can be
viewed as an index of 'potential' human development and IHDI
as an index of actual human development. The 'loss' in
potential human development due to inequality is given by the difference
between the HDI and the IHDI, and can be expressed as a percentage (UNDP
2010).
The new measure also introduced in Human Development Report in 2010
- Gender Inequality Index (GII) reflects women's disadvantages in
three dimensions - reproductive health, empowerment, and economic
activity (Dijkstra, Hanmer 2000). Reproductive health is measured by
maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates; empowerment is
measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each gender and
attainment at secondary and higher education by each gender; and
economic activity is measured by the labour market participation rate
for each gender. The GII replaces the previous Gender-related
Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index. The GII shows the loss
in human development due to inequality between female and male
achievements in the three GII dimensions. Aggregation of the GII
dimensions is first done separately for each gender group using
geometric means. The gender-specific means are then aggregated using
harmonic means which capture the inequality between women and men and
adjust for association between dimensions. Finally, the GII is expressed
as the relative difference (loss) between the harmonic mean and the
reference mean. The reference mean is obtained assuming equality of
genders in all three GII dimensions (UNDP 2010).
Lithuania's HDI for 2010 is 0.783. However, when the value is
discounted for inequality, the HDI falls to 0.693, a loss of 12 per cent
due to inequality in the distribution of the dimension indices.
Lithuania's "HDI neighbours", Croatia and Latvia, show
losses due to inequality of 15 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively.
In Table 2 comparison of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, UK, France
and some Scandinavian countries according GEM, GDI, HDI and inequality
adjusted human development index is presented.
Lithuania's HDI value for 2010 is 0.783--in the high human
development category--positioning the country at 44 out of 169 countries
and areas. The HDI is not designed to assess progress in human
development over a short time period because some of its component
indicators do not change rapidly in response to policy changes. This is
particularly so for mean years of schooling and life expectancy at
birth. It is, however, useful to review HDI progress over the medium to
long term. Between 1990 and 2010, Lithuania's HDI value increased
from 0.709 to 0.783, an increase of 10 per cent or average annual
increase of about 0.5 per cent.
In Lithuania, 18 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women,
and 92% of adult women have a secondary or higher level of education
compared to 96% of their male counterparts. For every 100,000 live
births, 112 women die from pregnancy related causes; and the adolescent
fertility rate is 22 births per 1000 live births. Female participation
in the labour market is 66% compared to 72%. The result is a GII value
for Lithuania of 0.359 ranking it 33 out of 138 countries based on 2008
data. Lithuania's "HDI neighbours", Croatia and Latvia,
are ranked at 30 and 22 respectively on this index.
3.2. Indicators of quality of life covering specific issues
Life quality indicators cover social, economic, environmental and
institutional issues. The quality of life means decent and healthy long
life in clean environment which meets all social needs of population and
guarantees life satisfaction and happiness. Safety, freedom, rights and
empowerment are important issues of social needs. As economy creates
conditions to satisfy social needs the economic indicators also need to
be assessed in evaluating the quality of life in the specific country.
Institutional indicators represent the quality of institutions which are
the key in implementing all other issues related to quality of life. In
addition, institutional indicators are directly related with human
rights, freedom, empowerment and safety. In the following sections the
most important economic, social, environmental and institutional
indicators will be developed for Lithuania and compared with other
countries, seeking to assess the quality of life in Lithuania, as the
trends of social development indicators analysed above, do not allow to
evaluate the results, achieved, as there are no benchmarks, presented
for Lithuania in Sustainable development strategy.
Economic indicators
GDP per capita adjusted at PPP is the main indicator to assess and
compare countries in achievements of economic development. This
indicator is also integrated in other complex indicators for countries
comparison in terms of achievement of sustainable development and
quality of life--Quality of life index, HDI, IHDI etc.
As of 2009, Lithuania was listed 49h by the International Monetary
Fund and 42th by the World Bank in terms of nominal GDP per capita
(ranging from $16,997 to $16,747) when adjusted for purchasing power
parity (PPP). During 1995-2010 GDP per capita in Lithuania has increased
from 5200 to 12900 USD.
Public debt is also important economic indicators. The big public
debt reflects burden which have to be paid by country inhabitants in the
future. Even the future generations will have to pay current public
debt. The CIA Factbook's public debt ranking shows that
Lithuania's public debt in 2009 was 36.7% it's GDP. 2010 est.
Japan's 92.1% of its GDP, the second highest figure in the world
after Zimbabwe. Among Western countries, the highest figures are for
Italy (115.20%), Greece (108.10%), Belgium (99%) and Iceland (95.10%).
Other Western countries stand between 7.50% (Estonia) and 80% (France).
The UK's public debt is 68.5%, while the USA's is 40%.
Social indicators
At risk of poverty rate and income inequality are the main social
indicator to assess the quality of life in the country. Other important
indicators are related to employment, unemployment and average useful
floor space per capita, the share of disposal income spent on food etc.
The risk of poverty rate in Lithuania in 2009 makes 20%. Comparing
with other countries it is similar to Baltic countries, Poland, Ireland
and UK. The low poverty rate is in Scandinavian and Benelux countries.
The Gini coefficient is used to measure the inequality of income or
wealth in disciplines as diverse as health science, ecology, and
chemistry. The CIA World Factbook gives Lithuania a Gini coefficient of
36 in 2005 (34 in 1999) while the United Nations estimated it at 35.8 in
2008. These are very different figures. The UN makes Japan the country
with the lowest income inequality after Denmark.
Unemployment and employment rate are directly related with poverty.
The unemployment rate in Lithuania has drastically increased because of
economic crisis in 2008. Currently unemployment rate in Lithuania makes
13.7% and is similar to other new EU member states.
Quality of accommodation is a slightly controversial point.
Lithuania has statistics on the percent of inhabitants provided with
centralized water supply, centralized sewage management services and
using public municipal management services, compared to total
population. However it is not possible to compare Lithuanian statistics
with other countries which provide such indicators, as the share of
population having private houses etc.
Average useful floor space per capita in Lithuania makes 25
[m.sup.2]. According UN Population Division the floor area per person is
less than 20 square meters for all of the African countries, and for
three quarters of the Asian and Pacific countries. Just Israel and
Philippines report floor area per person of 20 [m.sup.2] or more.
Developed countries such as USA and old EU member states have average
useful space per capita almost twice higher than in Lithuania.
Health & Society
The life expectancy is the main indicator of the health of the
population. Other important health indicators are: infant mortality
(infant deaths against 1000 births; circulatory disease death per 100000
population; death from cancer per 100000 population, incidence of
tuberculosis, obesity rate etc.
According to the United Nations and the CIA World Factbook,
Lithuania ranks at 80 according life expectancy. Overall life expectancy
in Lithuania -73.0. Man life expectancy -67.5, and woman life expectancy
-78.3.
According infant mortality Lithuania is ranked 145th and situation
has significantly improved since 1995 from 12.4 to 5 infant deaths per
100 live births. Latvia is ranked as 124th and Estonia as 134th
therefore situation in Lithuania in 2009 was better comparing with
neighbouring countries. All old EU member states are in the end of list.
Japan has the best indicator, following by Iceland, Finland, and Norway
etc.
According diseases of the circulatory system Lithuania is in very
bad position comparing with other countries. The situation hasn't
change since 1990. For example, in Japan this indicators is 151 deaths
per 100000 population, and in Lithuania--697.6 deaths per 100000
population. The best performing countries in the world according this
indicator are Japan, Switzerland, France and other old EU member states.
The deaths from cancer have increased almost twice in Lithuania
during 1990-2009. The current indicator -233.5 deaths per 1000000
population is lower comparing with the developed countries. The worst
performing countries according this indicator are: Netherlands (433
deaths per 100000 population; Italy (418 deaths per 1000000 population),
Hungary (411 deaths per 1000000 population).
According incidences of tuberculosis per 1000000 population
Lithuania is ranked 98th (62.54 per 1000000 population) Latvia 97th and
Estonia 117th. The best performing countries according this indicator
are: Monaco (2.2 per 1000000 population); Iceland (2.85 per 100000
population). The worst performing countries are in Africa starting from
Swaziland and following by Namibia, Botswana etc.
Obesity is one of the most important indicators of human health and
life quality as well. Estimates from the survey by OECD reveal that
people of the world's richest countries are getting fatter and
fatter with the U.S. leading the change. America occupies the top slot
with a portly population of over 70 percent among the 33 leading
economies of the world. Close on heels comes Mexico which bagged the
second place, and Chile is in the third slot, with England and Australia
not far behind. The skinniest nations are Japan, South Korea, and
Switzerland, where only three in ten people are overweight and less than
one in ten are obese. Lithuania is ranked 95th according the female
obesity (Table 3). Obesity is a known risk factor for several disorders,
such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory
problems (asthma), and musculoskeletal diseases (arthritis). Studies
have established that the lifespan of an obese person is up to eight to
10 years shorter than that of a normal-weight person. In addition,
obesity also increases health care costs. There are several reasons for
the obesity surge. The major reasons are unhealthy eating and excessive
calorie consumption, genetic predisposition, altered living and working
conditions, reduction in the amount of daily physical activity,
increased stress levels, and longer working hours.
Suicide rate is quite good indicator for the quality of life.
Suicide rate in Lithuania was 53.9 men per 100000 and woman 9.8 per
100000 in 2007. According to the World Health Organization, Japan has
the 4th highest female suicide rate in the world after Sri Lanka, China
and South Korea. Japan's male suicide rate is still the highest
among rich nations, although Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania have
higher rates.
According crime rate Lithuania is ranked as 27th and the current
crime rate in the country makes 22.9 per 1000 of population. In Latvia
crime rate is 21.9, and in Estonia -43.4 per 1000 people. In developed
EU member states the crime rate is higher than in Lithuania. The highest
crime rate is in Dominica following by New Zeeland, Finland and Denmark.
According car thefts Lithuania is ranked 23th country. Australia,
Denmark and UK have the worst statistics on car thefts. According
statistics on prisoners Lithuania is ranked 31th and Latvia and Estonia
have higher indicators on prisoners per capita. According Nation Master
the first country according this indicator is USA following by Russia
and Belarus.
Quality of environment
Per capita ecological footprint (EF) is evaluated in global
hectares per capita. The global hectare is a useful measure of
biocapacity, as it can convert things like human dietary requirements
into a physical area, and this can be used to show how many people a
certain region of the earth can sustain with current technologies and
agricultural methods. It can be used as a way of determining the
relative carrying capacity of the earth. This indicator can be used for
the comparing consumption and lifestyles, and checking this against
nature's ability to provide for this consumption. The tool can
inform policy by examining to what extent a nation uses more (or less)
than is available within its territory or to what extent the
nation's lifestyle would be replicable worldwide. The footprint can
also be a useful tool to educate people about overconsumption with the
aim of altering personal behaviour. Ecological footprints may be used to
argue that many current lifestyles are not sustainable. Such a global
comparison also clearly shows the inequalities of resource use on this
planet at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The world-average
ecological footprint in 2007 was 2.7 global hectares per person (18.0
billion in total). With a world-average biocapacity of 1.8 global
hectares per person (12 billion in total), this leads to an ecological
deficit of 0.9 global hectares per person (6 billion in total). If a
country does not have enough ecological resources within its own
territory, then there is a local ecological deficit and it is called an
ecological debtor country. Otherwise, it has an ecological remainder and
it is called an ecological creditor country.
As one see from Table 4 the Lithuania is an ecological creditor
country, however this credit is very small (0.031 gha/person), comparing
with other developed nations (United States 4.13 gha/person). Estonia
also has quite high ecological footprint per capita (7.12 gha/capita)
comparing with Lithuania's EF (4.76 gha/capita).
Freedom and human rights
Very important issue of quality of life is related with human
rights, freedom, democracy, gender inequality and corruption (Rodrik
2000). All these issues represent the main component of decent
life--freedom. The World Audit on corruption, democracy and freedom of
press presents the ranking of countries. The ranking of countries in
November 2009 is presented in Table 5.
As one can see from Table 5 Lithuania is badly ranked on
corruption.
The advocates of institutions argue that definite institutional
environment (measured through property rights, rule of law, corruption,
bureaucratic quality and other institutional variables) is the key
precondition of economic development (Sachs 2003). They state, that the
impact of geography on economic outcomes is only indirect, due to the
impact geography makes on institutions, the main source of economic
growth and development (Cook 1998). Five indexes were constructed by
World Bank to measure the quality of institutional environment: Civil
and political freedom index (CPFI), Regulatory and business freedom
index (RBFI), Rule of law index (RLI), Corruption index (CI) and
Property rights index (PRI). Table 6 lists the indicators used for the
construction of indices. Constructed indices capture different
dimensions of the institutional environment. To obtain an overall index
of the institutional environment for each country we computed the
institutional environment index (IAI). IAI is the simple average of five
indices (Jankauskas, Seputiene 2009).
As one can see from Table 6 the institutional environment index in
Lithuania is lower than in Poland, Ireland and UK. Especially bad
situation is with corruption index which is almost twice worse than in
UK.
Life satisfaction and happiness
In Lithuania geographical conditions, climate and political
situation do not contribute to happiness. Nationmaster ranks Lithuania
52nd in term of life satisfaction, behind all Western countries. Most
scores are based on responses to the following question: "All
things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your
life-as-a-whole now? 1 dissatisfied to 10 satisfied". The ranking
of countries based on life satisfaction is presented in Table 7.
This statistic on happiness is compiled from responses to the
survey question: "Taking all things together, would you say you
are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?"
The "Happiness (net)" statistic was obtained via the following
formula: the percentage of people who rated themselves as either
"quite happy" or "very happy" minus the percentage
of people who rated themselves as either "not very happy" or
"not at all happy" (Eysenck, Essence 1975). The ranking of
countries according happiness is presented in Table 8.
As one see from Table 8 for Happiness, the Lithuania gets the 44th
position. Just Slovakia and Bulgaria are scored with lower scores.
Regarding subjective well being and happiness Lithuanian has the
lowest index of subjective well-being (Inglehart, Klingemann 2000). The
subjective well being is assessed by surveys and consists from mean of
two indicators (happiness and life satisfaction). These indicators have
been assessed by percentages of happy and satisfied people in the
country (Inglehart, Klingemann 2000). In addition it is necessary to
mention that empirical studies showed that post-communist countries have
very low scores of subjective well being and happiness however Latvia
and Estonia are ranked above all post-Soviet republics. At the same time
Lithuania has very low score (just 57% of population consider themselves
as happy and 40% of population are satisfied with their life). The
similar figures are obtained just for Russia, Bulgaria, and Armenia.
Inglehart and Klingemann (2000) make suggestion that protestant
countries tend to show higher levels of subjective well-being than other
countries having the similar past and current experience therefore
happiness levels vary cross-culturally. These findings in no way refute
the evidence that genetic factors play an important role in subjective
well-being but these findings do indicate that genetic factors are only
part of the story. Genes may play a crucial role, but religion, beliefs
and cultural values are also very important (Clark, Oswald 1994;
Easterlin 2001; Frey, Stutzer 2002).
4. Conclusions
1. The high quality of life means decent and healthy long life in
clean environment which meets all social needs of population and
guarantees life satisfaction and happiness. Safety, freedom, rights and
empowerment are important issues of social needs. As economy creates
conditions to satisfy social needs the economic indicators also need to
be assessed in assessing quality of life in the specific country.
Institutional indicators represent the quality of institutions which are
the key in implementing all other issues related to quality of life. In
addition institutional indicators are directly related with human
rights, freedom, empowerment and safe.
2. The first hypothesis raised in the paper was confirmed. The
social development chapter in Lithuanian National sustainable
development strategy should represent the quality of life. However some
important quality of life indicators related with leisure, safety, crime
rate, freedom etc. are missing. In addition it is necessary to mention
that there are no benchmark indicators established in Lithuanian
sustainable development strategy therefore it is difficult to use these
indicators for the assessing progress achieved in improvement of quality
of life in Lithuania by implementing this strategy.
3. The main indicators covering economic, social, health,
environmental and institutional issues were selected to assess quality
of life in Lithuania and to compare Lithuania with other countries.
4. The second hypothesis raised in the paper was confirmed. Apart
for quite high life expectancy, low crime rate, and reasonable GDP per
capita (far from well developed countries though), Lithuania ranks well
behind Western countries in all other fields, with regard to freedom,
democracy and gender issues, but also quality of accommodation, life
satisfaction and happiness. Lithuania certainly isn't a bad place
by global standards, but is lower than average by Western standard.
5. Lithuania has very high emigration rate, the highest among new
EU member states. There are a lot of analysis and debate about the main
reasons of such situation however there is no clear answer as the main
research done in this field is based on macro-economic and social
factors having impact on migration trends in Lithuania analysis.
However, other new EU member states have similar macro economic data,
but significantly lower emigration rates therefore other factors, such
as institutional level, culture values, national personality and
subjective well-being and happiness need also to be analysed and taken
into account.
6. Lithuania distinguishes from the other countries with very low
subjective well-being score and high suicide rates. Most of
Lithuanian's consider themselves as unhappy and not satisfied with
their life. This is the main reason of suicide and emigration. Therefore
new policies are necessary to deal with these issues.
7. It is necessary to revise the social chapter in Lithuanian
National sustainable development strategy and to include the missing
indicators of quality of life: leisure, safety, crime rate, freedom,
institutional indicators etc. This would help to guide policies towards
achievement of the most critical aims of sustainable development related
with quality of life in Lithuania.
doi: 10.3846/20294913.2012.708676
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Dalia Streimikiene (1), Neringa Barakauskaite-Jakubauskiene (2)
(1) Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius,
Lithuania
(2) Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University, Muitines g.
8, LT-44280 Kaunas, Lithuania
E-mails: (1) dalia@mail.lei.lt (corresponding author); (2)
neringabj@gmail.com
Received 12 October 2011; accepted 02 April 2012
Dalia STREIMIKIENE. PhD, is Senior Research Fellow at the Social
Cultural Institute of Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University
(Lithuania). The main areas of research are: environmental policy,
energy policy
and economic tools of environmental regulation in energy sector.
Prof. Dr D. Streimikiene holds PhD in Economics (Vilnius Gediminas
Technical University, Lithuania, 1997). She has passed habilitation
procedure in Economics (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 2005).
She is Full Professor and Leading Research Associate at Kaunas Faculty
of Humanities, Vilnius University, Lithuania. D. Streimikiene has
experience in various projects related to sustainable development,
environmental and climate change mitigation policies. The main area of
her research is sustainability assessment of policies, technologies and
pro ducts in energy field, development of indicator frameworks for
sustainability assessment. D. Streimikiene has been in involved in
research dealing with climate change mitigation issues in energy sector
since 1998. She is included in the expert's roster of United
Nations Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) on GHG emission inventories,
assessment of climate change policies and measures in energy sector. She
has been regularly invited to work as an expert on climate change
mitigation and environmental issues for European Commission, United
Nations Economic Commission for Europe, United Nations Development
Programme, UN FCCC Secretariat.
Neringa BARAKAUSKAITE-JAKUBAUSKIENE. PhD student Vilnius
University, is Lecturer at Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius
University (Lithuania). In 2003, she graduated with BBA from the Faculty
of Social Sciences, Siauliai University (Lithuania) in the
specialization of Administration of Small and Medium Enterprises. In
2010, she graduated with MSc in Economics from Kaunas Faculty of
Humanities, Vilnius University (Lithuania). Her research interests
include analysis of economic cycles and bubbles, climate change
mitigation policy in energy sector, evaluation of macroeconomic policies
Table 1. Values of social development indicators in Lithuania in
1995-2010 (Statistics Lithuania 2011)
Social development indicators 1995 2000
1 employment rate for persons 62.3 58.7
aged 15-64, %
2 unemployment and long-term 13.2/7.2 16.4/8.5
unemployment rates, %
3 GDP share consisting of social -- 15.8
security expenditure, %
4 poverty risk level, % -- 19.0
5 income distribution coefficient -- 9.0
6 average life expectancy (man/woman) 63.3/75.1 66.7/77.3
7 natural population change per 1 000 -1.1 -1.3
residents
8 number of deaths from all respiratory 50.5 44.6
system diseases per 100 000 residents
9 number of deaths from all circulatory 669.7 598.1
system diseases per 100 000 residents
10 number of deaths from all malignant 208.0 220.7
tumour diseases per 100 000 residents
11 number of deaths caused by traffic 24.6 22.0
accidents, total and per 100 000
residents
12 salmonella poisoning cases per 68.8 34.3
100 000 residents
13 infant (under 1 year) mortality 12.4 8.5
(infant deaths against 1 000 births)
14 useful living area per capita--urban -- 20
and rural, sq m
15 number of deaths from accidents at work 103 66
16 funds allocated for education, % of GDP -- 5.9
17 funds allocated for culture, % of GDP -- 0.7
18 expenditure on research and -- 0.59
development, % of GDP
19 number of students in higher education 18.6 35.8
institutions (total graduates of that
year), compared to the number
of persons aged 20-24, %
20 number of pupils at schools of general 73.1 89.2
education (all graduates who obtained
basic or secondary education that
year), compared to the number of
persons aged 15-19, %
21 annual number of university 0.5 0.5
third-level study graduates having
earned a scientific degree, thou
Social development indicators 2005 2010
1 employment rate for persons 62.6 60.1
aged 15-64, %
2 unemployment and long-term 0.3/4.5 13.7/3.2
unemployment rates, %
3 GDP share consisting of social 13.3 21.3
security expenditure, %
4 poverty risk level, % 20.5 20.6
5 income distribution coefficient 6.9 6.3
6 average life expectancy (man/woman) 65.4/77.4 67.5/78.6
7 natural population change per 1 000 -3.9 -1.6
residents
8 number of deaths from all respiratory 50.8 46.7
system diseases per 100 000 residents
9 number of deaths from all circulatory 697.7 697.5
system diseases per 100 000 residents
10 number of deaths from all malignant 235.7 243.5
tumour diseases per 100 000 residents
11 number of deaths caused by traffic 25.9 13.7
accidents, total and per 100 000
residents
12 salmonella poisoning cases per 69.5 62.0
100 000 residents
13 infant (under 1 year) mortality 6.9 5.0
(infant deaths against 1 000 births)
14 useful living area per capita--urban 23.8 25
and rural, sq m
15 number of deaths from accidents at work 118 48
16 funds allocated for education, % of GDP 4.9 4.9
17 funds allocated for culture, % of GDP 0.6 0.8
18 expenditure on research and 0.75 0.84
development, % of GDP
19 number of students in higher education 45.5 48.1
institutions (total graduates of that
year), compared to the number
of persons aged 20-24, %
20 number of pupils at schools of general 92.5 92.9
education (all graduates who obtained
basic or secondary education that
year), compared to the number of
persons aged 15-19, %
21 annual number of university 1.1 0.5
third-level study graduates having
earned a scientific degree, thou
Table 2. Comparison of HDI, GDI, GEM, IHDI and GII
between several countries in 2007
Countries HDI GDI GEM IHDI GII
Sweden 0.963 0.956 0.909 0.824 0.212
France 0.961 0.956 0.779 0.792 0.260
Finland 0.959 0.954 0.902 0.806 0.248
UK 0.947 0.943 0.790 0.766 0.355
Estonia 0.883 0.882 0.665 0.733 0.409
Poland 0.880 0.877 0.631 0.709 0.325
Lithuania 0.870 0.869 0.628 0.693 0.359
Latvia 0.866 0.865 0.648 0.684 0.316
Table 3. Female prevalence of obesity
(percent of adults, aged 15 and older,
with a body mass index >= 30)
Rank Country Percent
13 United States of America 42
43 Slovenia 25
48 United Kingdom 24
53 Iceland 23
55 Slovakia 23
61 Czech Republic 21
64 Germany 20
70 Bulgaria 19
71 Switzerland 19
74 Poland 18
75 Finland 18
82 Hungary 16
95 Lithuania 14
99 Italy 13
101 Romania 12
102 Netherlands 12
Table 4. The ranking of countries according
the ecological footprint
Rank Country Ecological
footprint, gha
1 United Arab Emirates 15.99
2 United States 12.22
4 Denmark 9.88
6 Ireland 9.43
8 Finland 8.45
10 Sweden 7.53
12 Estonia 7.12
13 Switzerland 6.63
14 Germany 6.31
15 Czech Republic 6.3
16 United Kingdom 6.26
18 Norway 6.13
19 Iceland 6.02
21 Belgium 5.88
22 Netherlands 5.75
28 Poland 5.4
33 Hungary 5.01
36 Lithuania 4.76
42 Slovakia 3.94
43 Bulgaria 3.81
45 Latvia 3.74
Table 5. Ranking of countries based on political freedom
Country Democracy Press Freedom Corruption
Rank Rank Rank
Finland 1 1 4
Sweden 1 1 4
Denmark 1 4 1
New Zealand 4 7 1
Norway 5 1 10
Switzerland 6 6 8
Netherlands 6 7 7
Canada 8 16 6
Australia 9 22 8
Ireland 9 9 11
Germany 11 12 12
Belgium 12 5 17
Austria 13 19 12
United Kingdom 14 16 15
United States 15 14 17
Estonia 16 12 21
France 17 23 20
Portugal 18 10 26
Chile 20 39 16
Slovenia 21 31 22
Spain 22 27 24
Costa Rica 23 16 32
Czech Republic 24 14 39
Lithuania 25 19 35
Poland 25 27 32
Hungary 27 23 36
Slovakia 28 23 45
Table 6. Institutional environment index in Lithuania and other
EU member states
Lithuania Poland Ireland UK
Civil and political freedom 7.99 7.95 8.79 8.28
Business freedom index 7.00 6.32 8.64 8.67
Rule of law index 5.85 6.00 8.22 8.49
Corruption index 4.58 5.23 7.90 8.90
Property rights index 5.00 6.45 9.00 9.0
Institutional environment 6.08 6.39 8.51 8.67
index (IAI)
Table 7. Ranking countries according
life satisfaction
Country Rank Evaluation
Malta 1 8
Switzerland 1 8
Denmark 1 8
Iceland 4 7.8
Ireland 4 7.8
Canada 6 7.6
Luxembourg 6 7.6
Netherlands 6 7.6
Sweden 9 7.5
Finland 9 7.5
United States 11 7.4
Norway 11 7.4
Belgium 14 7.3
United Kingdom 16 7.2
Germany 18 7.1
Italy 20 6.9
Slovenia 33 6.3
Slovakia 42 5.6
Hungary 46 5.5
Estonia 47 5.2
Lithuania 52 4.9
Latvia 55 4.8
Romania 57 4.7
Table 8. Ranking countries according happiness
Country Rank Evaluation
Iceland 1 94%
Sweden 2 91%
Denmark 2 91%
Netherlands 2 91%
Ireland 6 89%
Switzerland 6 89%
Norway 8 88%
United Kingdom 9 87%
Belgium 11 86%
United States 13 84%
France 13 84%
Finland 15 83%
Poland 18 74%
Italy 23 64%
Hungary 33 46%
Slovenia 37 32%
Latvia 39 27%
Estonia 41 26%
Romania 42 23%
Lithuania 44 10%
Slovakia 45 5%
Bulgaria 50 -24%
