Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

The concept of quality of life has been recently introduced to the fields of sustainable development, social development planning, and modern economics, where it has gained a prominent place. Therefore, understanding, measuring, and improving the quality of life has been a primary goal for a large part of researchers, planners, and governments in the past few decades. Thus, quality of life has been considered a substitute for material prosperity throughout the last three decades. Quality of life index is a composite of different economic, social, health, and enviromental variables that influence individual and social development on individual and social levels. Therefore, the index can be a powerful tool in development planning in any society. Considering the importance of the issue and the factors effective on the quality of life, the currect study makes an attempt to develop a composite index of quality of life and to compare the status of this index in the provinces of Iran during the years 2003 to 2009. To that end, an attempt has been made to measure and rate quality of life in the provinces through the combination of factor analysis and numerical taxonomy methods. The results show that the province of Tehran had the significant highest prosperity compared to other provinces. While the provinces of East Azerbaijan and Isfahan had relatively good improvements in the quality of life, the provinces of Lorestan, Ilam, and (more significantly) Sistan and Baluchestan had a low quality of life.
 

Keywords

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