Quality of life of residents living near industrial estates in Singapore

Abstract

Quality of life (QOL) studies are increasingly gaining the attention of urban planners due to its usefulness in assessing and monitoring public policies. With this in mind, an attempt was made in this study to assess the quality of life of residents staying near industrial estates in Jurong, Singapore using 18 subjective life indicators to measure the overall life satisfaction. Based on a 5-point Likert scale, health (4.48), family life (4.37) and public safety (4.13) emerged as the more important aspects, while self-development (3.90), religion (3.60) and politics (2.74) were named by the respondents to be among the least important. On the satisfaction level, public safety (3.92), family life (3.88), and public utilities (3.78) were deemed to be among the most satisfied aspects, while consumer goods (2.92), politics (2.91) and environment (2.89) were considered to be among the least satisfied aspects. The relationship between the different demographic variables with overall life satisfaction were also determined and five variables, namely, marital status, education level, occupation, household income and household size were found to contribute significantly to the overall life satisfaction scores. Overall, the residents in Jurong were found to be generally satisfied with their life, scoring a mean satisfaction rating of 3.687. It is hoped that the data gathered from this study can be used by planners in formulating and implementing future policies.