Assessment of the quality of life of the population in Azerbaijan (on the example of the Greater Caucasus)

Abstract

Problem definition. Improving the quality of life of the population is a priority task in solving the socio-economic development problems of countries. In ensuring socio-economic development, it is of great importance to investigate and identify the issues related to the quality of life of the population, as well as to determine the directions for addressing these issues. One of the key conditions for solving these problems is the extensive use of comprehensive assessment methods.

Formulation of the purpose. The study was conducted with the aim of assessing the quality of life of the population in the administrative districts of the Greater Caucasus region, identifying regional disparities, and proposing solutions to address them.

Research methods. The study of changes in the quality of life indicators of the population in the Greater Caucasus region, the examination of the socio-economic conditions and demographic issues of the population, as well as efforts to address them, were carried out using system-structural, comparative analysis, geographic modeling, and cartographic methods (ArcGIS software) for transferring the collected data onto maps. During the mathematical-statistical calculations, MS Excel and its processing tools such as Xlstat were utilized. In the research, while assessing the quality of life of the population, indicators were indexed by taking into account demographic, economic, social, and environmental factors. In this study, the author proposes the calculation of a Quality of Life Index (QLI) to measure the quality of life of the population or the overall development level of regions.

The main material. For the assessment of the quality of life of the population, four groups of indicators have been identified: demographic, economic, social, and environmental. In the study, the author proposed the calculation of the Quality of Life Index (QLI) to measure the overall development level of the population or regions. The Quality of Life Index is calculated as the geometric mean of four indices (demographic, economic, social, and environmental). The comparative assessment of the quality of life using indexing has been carried out for the first time in the region. When calculating the index, various indicators are taken into account. Each of these indicators has a specific weight, which varies according to the characteristics of the indicators. The main purpose of indexing is to standardize the indicators in order to compare regions.

Conclusions. The analysis revealed that the weights of the indices are variable. This variability depends on the geographical location, area, level of socio-economic development, population size, and settlement patterns of the regions. The Quality of Life Index was normalized to a range between 0 and 1, where a value of ‘1’ indicates the region with the highest quality of life compared to others, and ‘0’ represents the region with the lowest. The index values were grouped as follows: low (0.100–0.399), medium (0.400–0.599), high (0.600–0.899), and very high (0.900–1.000).