《社会指标研究》自1974年创办以来，已成为衡量生活质量各方面问题的领先期刊。该杂志继续发表关于生活质量各方面的研究结果，其中包括反映该领域发展的研究。它特别注意研究诸如生活质量的可持续性、可持续发展以及生活质量与可持续性之间的关系等问题。杂志封面上的主题包括各种各样的分类，如社会群体、时空坐标、人口组成和生活领域。该杂志提供经验主义、哲学和方法论研究，涵盖整个社会范围，致力于通过指标提供证据。它以不同的类型学来考虑各种指标，并特别注意能够满足了解日益复杂、相互关联、相互作用和动态的社会现实和现象的需要的指标。此外，它还提出了旨在确定建立指标的新方法的研究。
Since its foundation in 1974, Social Indicators Research has become the leading journal on problems related to the measurement of all aspects of the quality of life. The journal continues to publish results of research on all aspects of the quality of life and includes studies that reflect developments in the field. It devotes special attention to studies on such topics as sustainability of quality of life, sustainable development, and the relationship between quality of life and sustainability. The topics represented in the journal cover and involve a variety of segmentations, such as social groups, spatial and temporal coordinates, population composition, and life domains. The journal presents empirical, philosophical and methodological studies that cover the entire spectrum of society and are devoted to giving evidences through indicators. It considers indicators in their different typologies, and gives special attention to indicators that are able to meet the need of understanding social realities and phenomena that are increasingly more complex, interrelated, interacted and dynamical. In addition, it presents studies aimed at defining new approaches in constructing indicators.
