Quality of life of the youth: assessment methodology development and empirical study in human capital management

Abstract Based on existing approaches to assessing the quality of life and similar concepts in human capital management, a quality of life index for young people is proposed. It takes into account the factors of four groups that determine the subjective satisfaction with the quality of life: Economic environment; Socio-political environment; Social environment; Natural environment. Partial factors and their corresponding quality of life indicators are adapted to the assessments of young people, whose needs and interests differ significantly from other age groups due to differences in the values of generations and features of economic activity at a young age. The methodology developed by the authors is based on taking into account subjective assessments of the level of satisfaction with quality of life factors, as well as their importance based on the determination of weights. As a result of testing the methodology, it was found that the most important factors for a positive perception of quality of life are the social environment, in particular, family relationships and health. Economic and environmental factors have approximately the same effect. Socio-political environment factors have the least influence. Due to material well-being and the quality of socio-political life, satisfaction with the life of employed youth is slightly higher (by 3%). Instead, respondents who do not work are more satisfied with social comfort. The integrated index of quality of life of the interviewed youth is 3,438 points out of 5 maximum. The methodology and results of the assessment are useful for the development of national and regional programs and strategies of human capital development due to increase the level of satisfaction of material, spiritual and cultural needs of young people.


Introduction
High quality of life is one of the values of the welfare state, the achievement of which enhances the effect of perception of other democratic values of the nation and the motives of economic participation and development. Achieving high positions in the relevant international rankings not only contributes to a positive image of the country, but is also always directly related to the high competitiveness of the economy and opportunities for further human capital development. Thus, quality of life in various dimensions is considering in the key sustainable development goals set by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 2015). Numerous economic and social indicators and comprehensive indices have been developed in an effort to assess progress towards a decent quality of life. Today, the researchers relate to the quality of life assessment 'more than 150 composite welfare indicators. … There are over one hundred initiatives on the use of quality-of-life indicators in decisionmaking at the national and local levels' (IDSS, 2013, pp. 10-11).
At the same time, although the attention to assessing the quality of life remains very high, today the diversity of existing indices creates some difficulties in comparing the quality of life in different countries and in different groups of the population in current researches of human resources management. This problem is especially relevant for the age group of young peoplethe difference between their life values and perceptions of quality of life factors is significant compared to generations of parents, which has relevant manifestations in behaviour in the labour market (Chillakuri & Mahanandia, 2018;Gaidhani et al., 2019;Kirchmayer & Fratricov a, 2020).
At the same time, ensuring a decent quality of life for the population, including young people, is impossible without the formation of a system of factors for its assessment, which would take into account current needs and the availability of opportunities to meet them.
Thus, the aim of our work is the development of methodological principles for assessing the quality of life of young people based on the identification and analysis of indicators of comfort of life of individuals, as well as testing the developed methodology based on sociological research.
The article is organized as follows: Section I reviews the literature on the quality of life and peculiarities of their consideration in the assessments of the quality of life of young people; Section II explains the methodology and the data set; Section III presents the empirical results; and Section IV draws the author's conclusions.

Literature review
Today, quality of life (QOL), as well as well-being, does not have generally accepted official definitions. At least, they are not used in global analytical practice and scientific literature in this direction; a wide variety of appropriate approaches and assessment indicators ay serve as the evidence of this.
Some authors, e.g. (Power, 2020), generally build their own research based on the idea that the distinction between 'economic values' and 'social values' such as 'quality of life' is a misleading and dangerous distinction. In this case, Power T., following the works of Wingo Jr, L., (Wingo, 1973;Wingo & Evans, 2013), proposes to interpret the concept of 'quality of life' as 'the quality of social and physical (both humanmade and natural) environment in which people pursue the gratification of their wants and needs' (Power, 2020, p.3).
The basis of modern research on the quality of life in the EU is an analytical report resulting from the work of one of the EU commissionsthe Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, named after its key experts Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission. This article (Stiglitz et al., 2009) identifies the key indicators of quality of life and the concept that is characteristic of EU statistics: quality of life is a broader concept than economic production and living standards. It includes the full range of factors that influences what we value in living, reaching beyond its material side. The same position is continued in modern research by EU experts; and the key dimensions of quality of life are: Material living conditions; Productive or other main activity; Health; Education; Leisure and social interactions; Economic security and personal safety; Governance and basic rights; Natural and living environment; Overall experience of life (Eurostat, 2017, p.8).
In OECD countries, a similar approach is taken to estimating QOL as a Better Life Index. The components of this indicator are very close to those used by Eurostat. Better Life Index is based on assessing the quality of life by the following dimensions: Housing; Income; Jobs; Community; Education; Environment; Civic engagement; Health; Life Satisfaction; Safety; Work-Life Balance (OECD, 2020).
As we can see, the components of these indices are almost identical with small differences in relation to the partial indicators of well-being, attributed to the corresponding block of QOL indicators.
Other similar indices that have gained the highest recognition in the world, such as the Quality of Life Index developed by the Economic Intelligence Unit, the International Living Quality of Life Index by International Living Magazine, the Canadian Index of Well-being developed by scientists at the University of Vancouver, have similar indicators of assessment. All of them are based on the recognition that the material components of well-being are a necessary but insufficient condition for ensuring the quality of life. In addition, it is necessary to assess the subjective perception of acceptability and availability of the components of the human environment that determine well-being, and QOL indices in any of their interpretations are formalized indicators of the achieved level of well-being in objective and subjective sense.
In this regard, it is especially important to properly build monitoring procedures and to involve respondents of relevant target groups as much as possible (Koronakos et al., 2019;Sanda & K rupka, 2018).
As for possible differences in the approaches of different researchers, e.g. (Afanasiev & Kudrov, 2019;D'Silva & Samah, 2018;Prakash & Garg, 2019), they are understandable due to the dynamism and differences of the basic concept underlying the assessment (well-being). The admissibility of such differences can most clearly be illustrated by one of the theses identified in the Canadian Index of Child and Youth Well-being report: 'Different individuals, cultures, communities and age groups have different concepts and experiences of well-being. They have different goals and values. All citizens, including children, have the right to define what well-being means to them, their community and their society. No single index or approach can do this. However, well-being includes some common ideas' (UNICEF, 2019, p.10).
At the same time, in the context of our study, it is especially important that Canadian scientists, conducting their research under the auspices of UNICEF, offer a separate well-being index for the age group of children and youth (Canadian Index of Child and Youth Well-being). This approach best illustrates the importance of meeting needs and taking into account their differences in different age groups, especially children and young people. However, only one of the components of the index (Are We Free to Play? Are We Protected? Are We Learning? Are We Healthy? Are We Connected to our Environment?) Applies only to children. Others (Are We Happy and Respected? Do We Belong? Are We Secure? Are We Participating? Are We Protected? Are We Learning? Are We Healthy? Are We Connected to our Environment?) (UNICEF, 2019) is suitable for both children and for young people, and in general assesses the subjective feeling of satisfaction and accessibility of needs of both material content and higher levels.
Recognition of the reciprocal relationship between conventional performance measures and QOL indicators (Uysal & Sirgy, 2019) leads to a constant interest in QOL research and related indicators of socio-economic development at different levels. Such studies constantly confirm the links with the performance of enterprises and industries ( Cernevi ci ut_ e et al., 2019; Eslami et al., 2018), GDP and related indicators of well-being at the national level Kharazishvili et al., 2019;Malay, 2019;Mishchuk & Grishnova, 2015;Oliinyk et al., 2021) and the regional level ( Ci zo et al., 2020;Horsk a et al., 2019;Kisel ' akov a et al., 2018;Mazzanti et al., 2020). Being the components of social security assessment system, these factors are in fact a prerequisite for achieving social security Mishchuk et al., 2020) and personal well-being, especially in terms of ageing (Wang et al., 2021). One of the dangerous consequences of dissatisfaction with the quality of life is the proven links with the formation of migration motives (Mishchuk et al., 2019;Piekutowska & Fiedorczuk, 2018;Skufli c et al., 2018;Todorov et al., 2018), which can be irreversible and result in significant demographic losses of the country.
For young people, the characteristics of Generation Z behaviour can have a significant impact on decision-making in different areas, and therefore require more detailed research, as identified by researchers in this field (Goh & Jie, 2019;Matraeva et al., 2019;Su et al., 2019). They are especially important for students, who are the most creative part of each country's human capital, as they have reaffirmed their desire to accumulate their intellectual capital, making their future social productivity potentially greatest. If a feeling of dissatisfaction with the quality of life is formed in this group, such consequences are very dangerous for the prospects of restoring of the country's intellectual capital (Mishchuk et al., 2019). Therefore, studies of the behaviour of this social group are often conducted in the context of quality of life satisfaction (Cuzdriorean et al., 2020;Grabowski et al., 2019;Tilga et al., 2019).
With the aim of our own research to develop and adapt existing methodological principles to assess the quality of life of young people, our research is based on the approach developed with the assistance of UNDP in Ukraine. According to it, the quality of life, similar to the previously analyzed approaches, is assessed by four groups of factors (Economic environment; Socio-political environment; Social environment; Natural environment). In terms of content and composition of partial indicators, they are close to the most common approaches in Europe (Eurostat, 2017;OECD, 2020). Adapting them to the goals of our own research requires taking into account the peculiarities of the manifestation of needs and assessing their importance in the age group of young people, which we limit to the age of 17-25 years. At the same time, the target group of respondents is student youth, as well as university graduates who already have experience of economic activity, which may change their perception of QOL.
In the study, we ask the following research questions: How satisfied are young people with the quality of lifein general and in terms of partial indicators? What components of quality of life are most important?

Methodological approach
To answer the questions posed in the study, we will use the following methods: analogies, systematization and statistical groupingsto form a system of indicators for assessing the quality of life of young people; hypothetical, scientific induction and analogyto develop assessment methods; questionnaires and system analysisto establish the importance of various factors of quality of life of individuals and their satisfaction; analytical and comparisonto process survey results.
Thus, the central idea of our study is to adapt the existing methodological principles of quality of life assessment to the QOL assessment of young people. We consider the main existing methodological principle of quality of life assessment a methodology of the Institute of Demography and Social Research NAS, specially developed for Ukraine with the assistance of UNDP in Ukraine (IDSS, 2013).
Therefore, in order to substantiate the complex QOL indicator and select its components, we made comparisons of the following related indicators prevailing in current human capital management investigations: In addition to the above indicators, to clarify the composition of QOL indicators important for young people, we conducted a preliminary survey to analyze the suitability of indicators used in the original methodology, and supplement them with other ones, important for young people in the target age group.
As a result of a series of comparisons, we obtained a system of factors and the corresponding QOL indicators (see Table 1).
Based on this list, a questionnaire was developed in which respondents were asked to assess: 1) the importance of the influence of factors on the comfort of life; 2) satisfaction with the conditions of quality of life.
The survey was conducted in September-December 2019. The target group, as already mentioned, is the age group of young people between 17 and 25, including students of three state universities in one of the regional centres of Ukraine (Rivne) and graduates who have experience of economic activity. Their perception of QOL is important to clarify the system of values and aspirations of young people, on the basis of which well-being programs of state and regional management of public relations should be developed.
The questionnaire was tested by surveying young people via e-mail and social networks, as well as by direct contacts. During the formation of the sample, a balanced share of respondents was ensured; these were young people who were just studying and those who were university graduates or combined work and study.
To form a representative sample, we considered the overall quantity of the target youth groupaccording to the data of State Statistical Service of Ukraine; the total number of youth aged 17-25 in the region is 138 465 people (SSSU, 2020). So, following the Cochran formula (Cochran, 1977), the sample size for this population group should be 383 people, with confidence level 0.95 and confidence interval 0.05.
As a result of the survey, answers were received from 392 respondents. The first processing of the questionnaires resulted in selection of 384 questionnaires suitable for further analysis. We conduct the analysis, considering the appropriate representativeness of the sample.
The methodology for determining QOL by the author's method includes the following steps: 1. Calculation of average scores of satisfaction of respondents in each of the selected QOL indicators: where a i is the estimate of satisfaction of the i-th QOL indicator; P z j¼1 a i j is the sum of estimates of the i-th indicator by all respondents;j stands for a respondent;z is a sample size.
1. Determining the average estimates of the importance of the impact of each indicator on the respondent' QOL: where b i is the estimate of the importance of the i-th indicator in assessing the quality of life; P z j¼1 b i j is the sum of assessments of the importance of the i-th indicator in assessing the quality of life of all respondents.
1. Calculation of the specific weight of each indicator in a particular block for the calculation of partial indices (for each of the four blocks in this study): where V i n is the specific weight of the i-th indicator in n-th block; b iðnÞ is the estimate of the importance of the i-th indicator in assessing the quality of life of the n-th block;n is a block; P y i¼1 b iðnÞ is the sum of estimates of the importance of the indicators of the n-th block;y is the number of indicators in block.

Definition of partial indices of quality of life:
where I n is the partial indices of quality of life (of the n-th block).
1. Calculation of the specific weight of each indicator in the integrated quality of life index: where P m i¼1 b i is the sum of estimates of the importance of all m indicators analyzed (in this study m ¼ 30).
1. Determination of the specific weight of each partial index: where V n is the specific weight of each partial index (of n-th block) in the integrated quality of life index; k is the number of blocks (in this study k ¼ 4).b n is the average importance of the n-th block: (7) P k n¼1 b n is the sum of the average importance of each of the blocks.
1. Calculation of the integrated quality of life of an individual:

Conducting research and results
Based on the data obtained by sociological survey, the integrated index of quality of life of young people in general and with differentiation by sex and economic activity of individuals was calculated. Partial indices of material well-being, quality of sociopolitical life, quality of social well-being and quality of environment for youth are determined (see Table 2). The most important indicators of young people's well-being are the factors of the social environment. Economic and environmental factors have approximately the same effect. Socio-political factors have the least influence. Due to material well-being and quality of socio-political life, satisfaction with the life of employed youth is slightly higher (by 3%). Instead, unemployed respondents are more satisfied with social comfort. Men rated their quality of life higher than women. The integrated index of quality of life of the interviewed youth (mainly in Rivne) is 3,438 points out of 5 maximum. Young people consider family relationships and health to be the most important indicators that characterize the quality of life, whereas participation in charity and community work, as well as the availability of their own car, is regarded as the least important (see Figure 1).
Most economic indicators, including the size and stability of cash income, adequacy of funds for the purchase of food, durable goods and housing and communal services were in the middle of the ranking, indicating the social orientation of modern youth, whose main values are family and health. The greatest satisfaction is with the indicators of the social sphere: relationships in the family and with colleagues, the absence of bad habits, the ability to use the Internet and communication. Young people are least satisfied with the political situation in the country, the crime rate and the opportunity to buy their own car.

Discussions
As researchers, governments, various NGOs and foundations have attempted to assess the well-being of populations for centuries, there are currently a huge number of methods of satisfaction with the quality of life or life satisfaction assessment related to various aspects of human life and development of society. In recent years, research focused on the features of the use of digital technologies by young people, the effects  of social media on the mental health of adolescents, the study of whether digital media are improving or harming psychological well-being, the effects of the arts on health and quality of life, the role of family relationships in shaping the level of wellbeing etc. Among the current researches directly related to the sphere of human capital management, the closest to the identified criteria of well-being for Ukrainian youth were the results of a study carried out by British scientists (Frijters et al., 2020), according to which higher well-being scores are reported by individuals who: 1) are in employment; 2) have good health; 3) are partnered; 4) have higher income; are either young, or older (i.e. not in their mid-life crisis). However, in contrast to the results of our research, the authors attempt to quantify the Effect on Wellbeing based on a selection of key findings from the literature on Life Satisfaction. Differentiated results of the study by age groups of respondents, which could be used to compare the commitment to certain In another study (Jebb et al., 2020), the authors examined four important predictors of subjective well-being and how their associations changed: marriage, employment, prosociality, and life meaning. These predictors were typically associated with higher subjective well-being over the life span in every world region. At the same time, employment had larger effects that peaked around the age of 50 years. These findings are in line with our research, as we can conclude that the importance of S 11 and E 1 factors are high, but not the most crucial.
Similar results of our research conducted in Ukraine with indicators of living standards in other countries are confirmed by the study of authors who examined differences in three measures of subjective well-being over the life span, using representative cross-sections from 166 nations (more than 1.7 million respondents). Globally, and in the individual regions of the world, we found only very small differences in life satisfaction and negative affect (Jebb et al., 2020). For most people on Earth, higher subjective well-being has been associated with good health and longevity, better social relationships, work performance and creativity (Diener et al., 2018).
The results of our study had been obtained before the restrictive measures were introduced in Ukraine due to the coronavirus disease 2019. Therefore, the vast majority of potential items to estimate quality of life, in our list are those that have mainly physical (material) manifestation. However, the ongoing pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus has severely affected people's perception of quality of life. A global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus resulted in restrictions to daily living for the population of all age groups, including social distancing and closure of city and provincial recreation facilities, national parks and playgrounds. These preemptive measures impacted physical activity behaviour and wellbeing of citizens (Lesser & Nienhuis, 2020). The changes in society that have taken place over the last year have led to a decrease in activity and an increase in the level of sensitivity of the population, in particular young people, to stressful situations. As a result of research (Kivi et al., 2021), there was found a substantial increase in the search intensity for boredom in Europe and the US. The authors also found a significant increase in searches for loneliness, worry and sadness, while searches for stress, suicide and divorce on the contrary fell. The results suggest that people's mental health may have been severely affected by the pandemic and lockdown. Therefore, we see it appropriate to further expand the list of the Social environment block with items that will detail the confidence of respondents in their safety today and in the future. To do this, in our further researches, we intend to use the discussion from the international well-being summit in Kyoto, Japan (August 2019), where nine such additions were proposed and highlight why a more global view of wellbeing is needed. Overall, the new items reflect a richer view of well-being than life satisfaction alone and include hedonic and eudaimonic faces of wellbeing, social well-being, the role of culture, community, nature, and governance (Lambert et al., 2020).
Focusing in further studies on the mental attitudes (incl. mental health) of young people to assess the quality of their own lives, we also consider it appropriate to use (Baik et al., 2019) the responses to the question: What can be done to improve youth well-being? Students interviewed by the authors of this study made diverse recommendations that fell into seven categories: academic teachers and teaching practices; student services and support; environment, culture and communication; course design; program administration; assessment; and student societal activities.
The technique of The Riverside Life Satisfaction Scale focusing on the development of a new measure of life satisfaction (Margolis et al., 2019) will also be useful in this case. In particular, in our and other works in this direction, there can be used the Satisfaction With Life Scale, which has been the dominant measure of life satisfaction since its creation more than 30 years ago and improved by the authors under the direction of other scientists (Diener et al., 1985). The authors (Margolis et al., 2019) attempted to develop an improved measure that includes indirect indicators of life satisfaction (e.g. wishing to change one's life) to increase the bandwidth of the measure and account for acquiescence bias. In today's environment of heightened uncertainty about even the nearest future and limited social contacts, individual satisfaction with the quality of life will increasingly depend on mental factors related to the value orientations and the nature of expectations for the future of a particular individual.
With further researches in this direction, we will be able to more fully reflect the term of subjective well-being, which is synonymous with positive mental health (Ruggeri et al., 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO),) (2001) defines positive mental health as 'a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community'. Thus, such components of general life satisfaction are, at the same time, an important factor in forming a feeling of high QOL, and can be continued in further research in this direction.

Conclusions
Improving the quality of life of the population is one of the main tasks of every state in the field of human capital management in the process of international integration. Achieving world standards in this area is possible only with constant analysis of the quality of life, identification of problem areas and active public policy in the development and implementation of specific management decisions on clearly defined aspects.
To assess the quality of life of young people who have needs that are too different from other age groups, we propose to adapt existing approaches and use subjective assessments of certain groups of factors. Similar to the UNDP quality of life assessment recommendations tested in Ukraine by the main research institution (IDSS, 2013), we also use the new factors of the Economic environment to assess QOL; Socio-political environment; Social environment; Natural environment. But they are significantly supplemented by us, taking into account the approaches of other research institutions. The initial approbation of the system of factors in the pilot group of young people allowed forming a system of 30 factors relevant to the subjective perception of QOL. Our assessment based on the author's methodology allows us to analyze QOL both in terms of satisfaction of needs and their relevance.
The proper theoretical and applied ability of our proposed approach is confirmed by the compliance of the obtained results with the current processes of transformation of life values of young people taking place in society. In many surveys on the life values of young people, we can find similar results to our results. As in our study, other researchers who also studied the values of 'millennials' confirmed the lower interest of this population in political processes: 'More than older Americans, millennials resist identifying with political parties' (Bloomberg, 2015); the high importance of family values, which is sometimes manifested in long cohabitation with parents, later marriages and postponement of childbirth (Bloomberg, 2015;Pew Research Centre, 2019); high value of education (Pew Research Centre, 2019), higher than other generations of social responsibility, especially for the environment (Galup, 2019). Although the material needs of young people are quite visible, their importance is mostly inferior to social. At the same time, critical assessments of the level of satisfaction of many needs require their constant monitoring and consideration in the development of national and regional programs and strategies of human capital development due to improve the living standards of young people.
Further research of the authors will be aimed at expanding the methodology by involving objective indicators, adapting the proposed methodology to assess the quality of life of other categories of the population and forming a system of social policy measures at different levels.