Standard Of Living

Keywords: society and living standards, standard of living economics

Standard of living is defined as the level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area. And quality of life is defined as the perception of ability to meet daily needs, physical activities, and well-being. In generally, Standard of living is related on the buying power of the household and the owning power of property in the country. So it is always related the income of people and the economic inflation rate. Quality of life is the general well being of a society in term of health care, education, political freedom, a clean natural environment and any that can help to improve one’s satisfaction and happiness. Good in standard of living is always being first; and then we will able to have a high quality of life. A good standard of living had the characteristic of high income, low inflation and low unemployment happen in the country. From the perspective of business, standards of living in the country are important information that shown the level of consumption in the country. This is will bring lots of profit to the business because when the households are paid well, so they will spend more. Beside that’s quality of life are also important to business activity, because when the quality of life is high in the country, they will desire for high quality and more luxury goods and services. Maybe standard of living and quality of life will affect the decision making of a business but business activities is the main factor that affecting and influencing the standard living and quality of life in the country.

The characteristic of a good living standard is about; everyone isn’t lacking of job opportunity and at the same time, they are having a higher and stable income, so they have no worries about the basic needs and wants such as housing, food, cloth and transportation. They also had enough of money to handle their own or family’s living expenses. Even they have extra money to purchase the luxury goods and services. As a high living standard country, they sure have the strong ability to face the inflation; simultaneously it helps to decrease the bankrupt rate of people. In a high standard of living’s country, the government also need to make sure the fortune is separated almost equally to all people, so the people’s economic capacity between each other isn’t be difference too much and prevent the rich is getting richer and poorer is getting poorer.

How are these characteristics influenced by business activity? First, business activity will generate income to households. When the business is running well and it is keep expand rapidly, it will produce more income to households. Besides that, when business is running well, it will bring a lot of income to government by collecting tax. This will control the inflation happen on our daily product, because when the government is rich, they will subsidiary and also have the ability to control the inflation happen in the country so household have more money to own properties.

A high quality of life is all about the satisfaction to the environment that surrounded us from stimulates of physically, mentally, emotionally and also cultural influences. According to Mercer’s 2010 quality of living survey, there are ten factors that form a good quality of life. There are political and social environment, economic environment, socio-cultural environment, health and sanitation, schools and education, public services and transportation, recreation, consumer goods, housing, and natural environment. As we know that quality of live is about our satisfaction to the surrounding environment, so how does business activity fulfill our satisfaction?

First of all, from the perspectives of political and social environment; Business activity influenced by running international trading. When there are having international trading in the country, it will help to maintain a good relationship with others countries. When the relationship is maintained, the political of the country will become stable and the quality of life in the country will increase and become better. Malaysia is a good example on maintain a good relationship with other country by using international trading. Malaysia has import a lot of goods and services from the country such as China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and etc for the benefit of its own citizen and the benefit of other country.

Besides that our life satisfaction will also increase when we live in a comfortable living environment. So a high quality of house is very important because it is a relax station for people. It also helps to protect the safety of our family members. A clean city street is also make the people more interest and enjoy, the designed city facilities is more attract eyes of people. Besides the physical object, we also must make the city is low rate of air pollution and the climate is always not be sensitive change. So the business firms have their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) towards the country. The First CSR is Business firm must responsible to all the products and services that they had produce and mainly is in the building line. These house builder are not only produces an affordable house to us, they also need to ensure the safety of the building and the quality of the build. Besides that, business firm are also had the responsible to sponsor or support some charity to help the social and also help our future to gain more knowledge by set up library or purchase more book to the public library. This will increase quality of life in the country, because when people is educate well; they will less criminal or other bad issue happen in the country so we won’t live in a scared or fear atmospheres.

Having a convenient transportation system are also another factor of a high quality of life, this is because people no need to worry, when they wanted to go anywhere. The Characteristic of convenient transportation are there are full of bus station with a fixed time bus transport services around the city. Lots of taxi is waiting outsides of the shopping mall. The contribution of business activity to this characteristic is by paying tax to government. Because most of the transportation system is under the control and maintained by government, government has the responsible to done it well. The government also need to construct more road and organize the area structure to make sure people less to facing the traffic jam during the busy period because they always have their own vehicle. But if the government doesn’t have any money how can they maintain this facility well? So government need to depend on business firm, because they are the one who pay government tax and pay household wages to pay them tax too. So the business firm has played an important role on providing monetary support to government on building a better facility and environment to the country.

As high quality city, health and safety facility are very important. In business or an organization, there are Act that help to ensure the health and safety of employees that needed follow by the firm. For example; OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970) is one of the acts that needed follow by firms. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970) is to ensure every working man and woman in the nation safe; and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resource. Occupational illness refers to any abnormal condition or disorder caused by exposure to environmental factors associated with employment. When the firms follow this act during any business activity, it will increase the satisfaction of their employees and the reputation their company in other country and also increase the quality of live in their country.

Besides the Act that helps to increase the satisfaction of citizen in the country, medical supplies are also important in building a high quality of life country. Business activity has play a important role in medical supply, because business is about trading, exchanging, providing goods and services to the market to fulfil people’s needs or wants and generate profit or benefit from it by taking risk. These supply can be go through import or manufacturing by the business firm. When the medical supplies are enough in the country, people will able to cure on time not like other country such as Africa, they are thousand of them die everyday because of lacking in medical supply.

Besides these, education is also important on building a high living standard and good quality of life’s country. Because education is the only ways to ensure our next generation has a good future. How do business activities ensure our next generation’s education? Educational is also a kind of business, for example private lodge school, private college and university, tuition centre and etc. When these private schools providing an affordable course into the public, it give more chances for us; and now children are easier to educate, not like last time in my grandparents era, they don’t have much chance to gain more knowledge so they are easy cheated by other that had high education. So education is very important, if not we might easily cheated by other country or others that are high educated.