A Human Well-Being Perspective to the Measurement of Quality of Life: Findings From the City of Delhi

This study employs Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to assess the quality of life of people in Delhi. Despite recording the highest per capita income in the country, Delhi remains a city-state of many inequalities causing huge disparities in the living conditions of the rich and the poor. Here I assess peoples’ perception of these disparities using five sets of well-being dimensions; psychological distress, social interactions and leisure activities, sheltering conditions, health status, and economic status & working conditions. Using a stratified random sample of 330 households (1,267 individuals aged atleast 18 years) and plurality of well-being dimensions, survey responses are quantified using fuzzy set theory, an approach designed to handle inexact and fuzzy outcomes. The results show that around 31 % of Delhi’s population is deprived of social interactions and leisure activities, over 25 % of people have very poor health status and around 14 % have very poor economic and working conditions. Education, in particular, is found to play an important role in improving the well-being of individuals. Higher levels of education are associated with higher levels of well-being achievement. The findings from this analysis should make a strong case for supplementing economic indicators with other indicators of well-being.