Author: Alex C. Michalos

Valerie Møller is Professor of Quality of Life Studies in the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. She has researched a wide range of quality of life issues in South Africa for public information and policy purposes, including housing, poverty and unemployment, development and service delivery, criminal victimisation and intergenerational relations. Together with colleagues she developed the first survey instruments in the 1980s to measure perceptions of personal well-being among South Africans – the study is regularly updated. More recently she successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a quality of life module in Statistics South Africa’s annual household survey which produces the bulk of national social indicators. Denis Huschka is Managing Director of the German Council for Social and Economic Data, situated in Berlin/Germany. He also conducts scientific studies as a Research Associate of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa and he is Permanent Visiting Fellow of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). He has conducted empirical research on regional differences in Quality of Life in Germany and Europe, and on Anomia in post-apartheid South Africa. He was involved in establishing or carrying out several survey initiatives (Wohlfahrtssurvey, Germany; General Household Survey 2002, South Africa; Euromodule, Europe). His most recent research interest focuses on the sociological concept of individualisation as applied to given names as social indicators. Alex Michalos