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Introduction

Quality of life is a multidimensional concept that is similar to and often used interchangeably with the terms “well-being,” “welfare,” and “standard of living.” The term “quality of life” refers to a summary measure of well-being, where the locus of well-being is the individual members of society. This frame of reference presents analysts with substantive difficulties, because there is no generally accepted theoretical model to guide analyses. The lack of a theory of what constitutes “the good life” derives from the fact that the way in which people identify and integrate the important domains of their lives are generally unknown (Mukherjee 1989, Wish 1986). Quality-of-life indicators are typically chosen based on intuition (Bayless and Bayless 1982, Diener 1995) and ease of data collection (Power 1980). Further, the means by which the well-being of individuals can be meaningfully aggregated to represent social welfare is not a simple matter (e.g., see Arrow 1983), and how well off one is in society relative to others may be more important than any absolute measure (Easterlin 1974).

To provide the reader with a better sense of how the quality-of-life concept has been treated in major studies, we briefly review some well-known indices. This leads us to a consideration of how forests contribute to the quality of life in the South.