Physical Quality of Life Index

The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) is an attempt to measure the quality of life or well-being of a country. The value is the average of three statistics: basic literacy rate, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 0 to 100 scale.


It was developed for the Overseas Development Council in the mid-1970s by Morris David Morris, as one of a number of measures created due to dissatisfaction with the use of GNP as an indicator of development. PQLI might be regarded as an improvement but shares the general problems of measuring quality of life in a quantitative way. It has also been criticized because there is considerable overlap between infant mortality and life expectancy.

The UN Human Development Index is a more widely used means of measuring well-being.

Steps to Calculate Physical Quality of Life:

1) Find percentage of the population that is literate (literacy rate).

2) Find the infant mortality rate. (out of 1000 births) INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate = (166 - infant mortality) × 0.625

3) Find the Life Expectancy. INDEXED Life Expectancy = (Life expectancy - 42) × 2.7


4) Physical Quality of Life =


(Literacy Rate + INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate + INDEXED Life Expectancy)

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