Objective indicators have included standard of living, health and longevity, housing and
neighbourhood characteristics. These are typically measured with indicators of cost of
living, mortality rates, health service provision, education levels, neighbourhood structure
and density, socio-economic structure and indicators of inequality and crime in the
neighbourhood or other area unit of study (Flax 1972; Rogerson et al. 1989; Sherman and
Schiffman 1991; Muntaner and Lynch 2002). Veenhoven (1999), on the basis of national
comparisons from the World Database of Happiness, which indicated that the more
individualized the nation, the more citizens enjoyed their lives, added ëindividualisation of
societyí to the list, including indicators of individualistic values; peopleís capability to
choose (measured by indicators of education and information), opportunities for freedom of
political choice, (political and civil rights, including democratic rights), freedom of
economic choice (security of finances, freedom to produce and consume what one wants,
freedom to keep what one earns and freedom of exchange) and freedom of personal choices
(choice in divorce, abortion, sterilization, homosexuality, prostitution, suicide, euthanasia)