Well-being and inequality AbstractAn objective and a subjective
approach to study well-being is introduced. The objective
approach is particularly useful to compare the quality of life
of given societies across time and space. Using the objective
approach, we can identify strong differences of quality of life
between European countries. In comparison to Western Europe,
East European countries tend to have a rather low quality of
life. Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium form
a cluster of countries with high quality of life. The subjective
approach to study well-being is useful for investigating the
importance of dimensions of social inequality for people
themselves. It is shown that most of the inequality dimensions
traditionally analysed by social scientists affect peoples
subjective well-being. However, it is also shown that some of
the more materialistic inequality dimensions (such as income)
tend to be less important in rich societies, while certain non-
materialistic dimensions (such as