Quality of Canadian life

The Quality of Life Project is a five-year research program that began in 1976 and was officially titled "Social Change in Canada: Trends in Attitudes, Values, and Perceptions." The overall purpose of the project was to develop time series measures of the perceived quality of life and of other subjective social indicators for Canada and its major regions. The data were gathered in sample surveys of the general public of Canada and of selected Canadian decision-makers from a number of institutional sectors. Three national surveys took place in the years 1977, 1979, and 1981, each containing approximately 650 variables and including more than three thousand respondents. A panel of about two thousand respondents is being followed through the three sets of interviews. Surveys of the decision makers took place in 1977 and 1981 and will provide for comparisons between the general public and top business executives, politician, civil servants, and trade union leaders. The survey data for the project were collected through the Survey Research Centre at the Institute for Behavioural Research, York University, Downsview, Ontario.