Household-Level Quality of Life of People in Bolpur Town of Birbhum District, W.B.

Abstract

A household is the most micro level important spatial unit of study. The size, number of persons, physical and socio-economic characteristics of this spatial unit has a great bearing on the quality of life . Different socio-cultural and economic components determine the quality of a person’s life. If one member of the family has achieved a high quality of life , this will have a positive impact on the other members of the family and on the rest of the household . The household is often taken as the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government studies. In this paper, attempt has been made to study variation in the quality of life of urban inhabitants at the household level. To accomplish the work, Bolpur town from Birbhum District of West Bengal was chosen. Bolpur town lies in a socio-economically backward region. The study involves primary data obtained from 350 households . The quality of life at the household level was found varying across households of different social groups , different categories of educational achievement , income and occupation. The majority of households belonged to the lower income category. Only a small number belonged to the category of higher educational achievement but these enjoyed a better quality of life as did the families whose earning member was in the service sector.