Ethnicity, Neighbourhood Deprivation and Quality of Life: An exploratory analysis of Annual Population Survey data

The recent recognition that quality of life should be added to economic measures of output and growth in assessing national well-being has seen questions which seek to measure this added to the Annual Population Survey. The four dimensions covered are happiness; satisfaction with life; worthwhileness of their activity; and anxiety. This paper uses APS data for 2011-12 and 2012-13 to examine the relationships between the four quality of life (QoL) variables and other measures of economic activity and health, contrasting the experience of people from different ethnic and cultural groups. Using the Secure Data Service versions of these datasets, the paper further explores relationships between these QoL variables and neighbourhood deprivation, taking into account the geographical concentration of individual ethnic groups. The multivariate modelling will adjust the effects of socio-demographic, housing, deprivation, geographical and life-cycle factors on well-being outcomes for broad ethnic and cultural groups. The findings will improve our understanding of how people from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds perceive and report their well-being and happiness.