Measuring the quality of life in European Union: the case of Turkey as a candidate country

This paper is aimed at measuring and comparing the quality of life in European Union (EU) and Turkey as an important candidate country on the process of integrating with the EU. Rather than using per capita income as a classical measure, this study uses social indicators of development as a measure of well-being. Instead of using human development index (HDI) - an index commonly referred as "deprivation index" - we adopt the indices that are developed in Zaim, Fare and Grosskopf. The "achievement index" measures the success of a country in the provision of standard of life. On the other hand "improvement index" is used to measure the improvement of the country over time in terms of its life quality. The stated results suggest that Turkey should improve its quality of life on the way of integrating with the EU.