The quality of living in low-income southern rural counties : an index and its correlates

This research was directed toward the investigation of the possibility of developing indicators of county quality of living using available secondary data. Quality of living for an individual was operationally defined as the individual respondent's score on Cantril's self-anchoring, self-perceived quality of living scale. County quality of living was defined as the arithmetic mean of individual respondents' scores for a representative sample of county residents. The sample population was thirty rural counties in the south eastern part of the United States of America. An analysis of variance for the counties showed that there was a significant difference for quality of living for the counties. Thirteen conceptual variables were suggested by theory. Fourteen empirical independent variables were used in a multiple linear regression model. These variables were obtained from census data. A stepwise multiple linear regression was performed to obtain an equation that had the R² most significantly different from zero. No model proved to be significant at the .05 level. Probable reasons for the lack of significance were attributed to:

1. The failure of the real life variables to be related in the fashion suggested by the conceptual model.

2. Failure of the real life variables to meet the assumptions of multiple linear regression.