We have to give
some thought to material conditions in relation to GDP.
It is said GDP
reflects standard of living which necessarily has to and does include material
conditions that surround the people.
The most common
material conditions that influence people are generally house, job, health and
safety. All these indicate the quality
of life, of living. Let us first of all
understand that quality of life is different from the standard of living. By
quality of life, the general well-being of individuals and societies is
primarily taken into consideration. On the other hand, the concept of standard
of living is predominantly focused on income only.
House is a major
fact in assessing the quality of life, rather quality of living. House is
accommodation. Man needs a place to live in being assured of safety and
protection from all kinds of weather. He needs to make family and run it. House
is a place for him to sleep and rest without which normal living will not be
normal for long. It provides him with a keen sense of personal security and
safety. Above all, house must satisfy him in all his basic needs so that house
sweetens itself into home.
Housing and
housing costs go together. It means that one’s income decides the kind of house
he can afford to build or buy. A rich man with massive disposable income can
easily afford to go in for a very big house; it reflects his standard of
living, discernible. A poor man may choose to live in a hut with no other
possible option. It is his standard of living indicator. If the rich man has
some sort of terminal illness that forces him to become bed-ridden as against a
poor man in hut who labours endlessly and suffers from no such terminal
illness, he can be said to have a better quality of living than the rich man
lying down in bed in his sprawling resident.
Three more facts
are to be taken into consideration with regard to housing as an indicator of
living, of material conditions: structural materials, inner facilities and neighborhood.
The more money
you have the better materials for housing you can easily access. Leave alone
the area housing has taken up; the materials used to construct a house also
yield to lots of varieties enabling choices. Both thatched roof and gold plated
ceiling come under structural materials used in housing.
Sky is the limit
for the inner facilities if you have rolls of currencies at your disposal.
Every item of inner structure has a wide range of varieties to meet equally a
wide range of access to money.
Neighbourhood is
another vital aspect of housing. You may
command a house in such an area where there is no pollution of any kind such as
continuously noisy neighbours.
We will continue
this line of discussion dealing with GDP as an indicator of standard of living
and quality of life.