“Quality of Life” Research at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Social Indicators and Social Surveys

Abstract

“Quality of Life” research at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics is headed by an integrated pair of projects: the series on Social Indicators and the Social Survey. The development of these two projects raises issues of harmonization of measures with otherdepartments in the Israel CBS as well as with international recommendations. Quality-of-life research necessarily requires collecting information about respondents’ evaluations of their situation, but proposals to include such questions in surveys carried out by National Statistical Organizations may meet with opposition which argues that the information provided is not “objective.” The quality-of-life research program at the Israel CBS has a dual goal: to provide baseline information and to be policy relevant.