Standard of living

"Living standard" redirects here. For normative standards implemented as living documents, see Living document.

Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outside an individual's personal control, such as economic, societal, political, and environmental matters.[1] Individuals or groups use the standard of living to evaluate where to live in the world, or when assessing the success of society.

In international law, an "adequate standard of living" was first described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further described in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. To evaluate the impact of policy for sustainable development, different disciplines have defined Decent Living Standards in order to evaluate or compare relative living experience.[2]

During much of its use in economics, improvements to standard of living were thought to be directly connected to economic growth, as well as increase amount of energy consumption and other materials. However, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report found that literature demonstrates that improvements in sustainable development practices as well as changes in technological efficiency and energy production and use, allow for a Decent Living Standard for all people without fossil fuels and ~15.3 GJ per capita by the end of the 21st century.[3] This allows for climate change mitigation by demand reduction as well as other sustainable development practices.[3]

  1. ^ "standard of living". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/5785495729. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^ "Supplementary Material I Chapter 5: Social Science Primer" (PDF). IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Chapter 5: Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation" (PDF). IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2022.