In 1972 and 1973, 7 southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) were surveyed to determine household head or spouse's perceptions of quality of life (QOL) in their county of residence and to determine perceptions of change in quality of life for their family situations, within their counties, and the U.S. over the past 10 years. Independent variables employed were: size of household; age of household head; education of household head; adult's capability of work index; dependency index; occupational satisfaction; material items; communication items; leisure time participation intensity; income; total material and communication items; occupation; occupation minus five years; and social participation of head and spouse. For total respondents, the largest coefficient (.30) was for the income variable suggesting that increasing or relatively larger household income is associated with positive perceptions of QOL; the "other" race category comprised essentially of Native Americans yielded a coefficient of .34 for leisure time participation suggesting that leisure time activities are important to this group when contributing to positive QOL perceptions; there were consistently large coefficients for associations between income and positive QOL perceptions for the open country, hamlet/village, and town residents; in the city residence category, a .40 correlation was recorded for the dependency index, suggesting that the presence of dependent persons in urban households is associated with negative QOL perceptions. (JC)