The list includes Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which are well under that treshold, but not Qatar for example, which is more populous than the aforementioned.
I don't think the list has a solid logic for those who are in or not
It's hard to enjoy a quiz if the rules are not appropriately defined.
Specially in a test such as this one, since among the countries with greater living standards are many small ones in one sense or another (Luxembourg, Andorra, Singapore,...)
I tend to agree with SeanersaurusRex. Canada would definitely be my choice as best country in the world to live in. Sure Switzerland may be on top of the list, but apart from the health care, what exactly does it offer, besides out of reach shopping and expensive places to eat? Can your average Joe go to Switzerland and make a great life for himself, or would he want to?
Canada has something for everyone from everywhere, and I believe it is their diversity that is their strength.
I won't even mention the USA because right now it's the last place anyone should want to go to. I'm surprised they even made the cut, here.
As for Australia, yeah ok. Maybe it's great too. But, seriously? It's so far from everywhere else.
Leni, I’m not trying to start an argument but I’m just going to say that Switzerland is also neutral and doesn’t have enimes I don’t think. It would be good to be born in, and be safe during WW2
Here are some of the reasons:
Gun violence.
Lack of affordable healthcare.
Your president.
The education system.
The weak labeling laws in regard to food.
Fracking.
Climate change denial.
The way the government stalks people.
The low minimum wage.
There are more, but that's a start. By the way, I am not trying to say all Americans and everything American is bad, but these are some of the reasons I would not want to live there.
Source says it is data collected from 80 countries and gives no explanation as to why the other 116 countries are 'ignored'. ... Meanwhile, I only speak English, so I guess I'm pretty lucky I was born in an English speaking country.
First, the UK isn't the Englishest-speaking country - there's a quiz on that somewhere.
Re the NHS - it's well-intentioned, and venerated as a sacred part of the national infrastructure, but it's under-funded and it's a huge (almost Soviet-style) bureaucracy. Quality of patient experience varies wildly - I've personally experienced both excellent and dreadful. You generally get treated as some kind of traitor if you point out that most other countries with universal healthcare seem to do it better (France is a particular good and particularly nearby example), but that doesn't stop it being true.
Impressive that the US makes the list given its lack of universal healthcare, actually - shows how highly it must score in other areas.
What a dumb statement elbi. Wacky NHS? It's fine and would be even better if non-UK patients all settled their NHS treatment bills. Inflammable housing? One tower block had a tragic accident and the UK now has inflammable housing? I'd better warn my neighbours then!
Please specify whether small means in size or population, as Iceland is bigger in area than South Korea, Ireland, Taiwan, and Belgium (I think).
Apart from that great quiz
Kind of surprised to find Japan and UK not on the list. Also, the UAE is only good to be born in if you're born as a citizen (less than a 15% chance as I recall), otherwise relatively crappy.
Like all such lists based on a small number of data points there are going to be blind spots and those blind spots are illuminated best by countries that might score well in the criteria they consider while being far behind in other areas. The UAE being the best example on this list. And while Israel is a very nice and well-developed country (and safe most of the time), I'm guessing they didn't include some parts of the West Bank or any of Gaza.
I would love to know the parameters of this. UAE is a tiny country surrounded by very violent and larger Muslim countries. Germany's violence (especially rapes) has been increasing due to those Muslim's fleeing the Middle East for asylum countries like Germany. And South Korea has an insane dictator playing with nukes like they are building blocks for a five-year-old right on it's border constantly threatening to invade. I would imagine the UK, Portugal and/or Spain would be safer and more stable than any one of those three.
based off of
Material well-being as measured by GDP per capita (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS)
Life expectancy at birth
The quality of family life based primarily on divorce rates
The state of political freedoms
Job security (measured by the unemployment rate)
Climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm rainfall)
Personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism)
quality of community life (based on membership in social organisations)
governance (measured by ratings for corruption) gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women)
The data is from 2013. Even if what you say about the crime rates in Germany is true, the refugee wave started only in 2015, so this factor could not have been taken into account yet.
Finish reading the sentence, guys. He said the dictator was playing on the border.
That said, the UAE borders Saudi Arabia and Oman. Neither are "very violent." Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world and Oman, by Middle Eastern standards, is downright pleasant. South Korea is a beautiful and peaceful country in spite of technically being at war with the north since the 1950s, and we can hope that the bluster from Pyongyang is not turned into all out catastrophe by the idiot currently occupying the White House; most analysts believe that it won't be. Germany and Scandinavia certainly have their problems, Muslim/South Asian rape gangs amongst them, though you'll find plenty of those in the UK as well. Shockingly large numbers of them, actually, many ineffectively prosecuted by police for fear of appearing racist. Meanwhile Iberia is still dealing with economic recession and massive unemployment. And they have immigrants, too.
I've read the whole statement about South Korea, doesn't make it any less ignorant. Same goes for all the other the drivel in the original post. Germany and Scandinavia might have their issues, to which I'm not blind, but they consistently rank amongst the safest nations in the world regarding violent crime, yes even today. Media like to make the most out of sensational events, certainly does not mean it is part of daily reality. As you correctly point out, the UK scores much worse on such metrics, as do almost all developed nations. Putting Spain and Portugal ahead of Germany despite massive youth unemployment is simply laughable.
kolp.... the ignorance in the comment you're calling out is still nowhere near as bad as that in the comments made on this site every day about the USA. See luxint's below, for example.
Let's agree to disagree. I also get annoyed by the constant anti-americanism btw, as evidenced in quite a few of my post. There seems to be a complete inability for some to distinguish the rare and extraordinary (mass shootings, mass sexual harassment) from the ordinary.
Safe... Do you have to stay inside in Australia or does this include going out into the wirld with all the poisonous and dangerous animals that can kill you? IT'S A JOKE.
Israel over France and the UK makes pretty good sense. Saudi wouldn't... but as kolp pointed out it's not on here. Maybe you're confusing Saudi Arabia with the United Arab Emirates? I've lost track of how many people I've known who didn't know the difference between the two.
Since everyone is obviously too lazy to make a single click, here's a breakdown of the criteria:
The independent variables in the estimating equation for 2006 include:
Material well-being as measured by GDP per capita (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS)
Life expectancy at birth
The quality of family life based primarily on divorce rates
The state of political freedoms
Job security (measured by the unemployment rate)
Climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm rainfall)
Personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism)
Quality of community life (based on membership in social organisations)
Governance (measured by ratings for corruption)
Gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women)
My thoughts on this:
CLIMATE! yes finally a list that includes that. But... but... wtf!!?? FOURTEEN!!!?? 14 is NOT the ideal temperature. It would be maybe 25. Is this organization based in Iceland?
Material well-being, fine. Though I don't think GDP tells the whole story maybe include happiness index or suicide rates.
I would not count divorce rates as a bad thing. Having a realistic understanding of relationship dynamics and acknowledging that sometimes marriages ought to end is a good thing. Much better than, say, the Philippines where divorce is illegal. Though better to not get married at all.
Unemployment rate: probably as I guessed before a big part of why Spain is omitted.
Not a lot of information is given on the calculation method for climate, but going by some logical metrics, countries scoring well on this criteria would have a climate similar to that of the south of France. Makes it a pretty good benchmark I guess, though still too warm for me.
25 might be the ideal temperature but this is measured as an average deviation. If it were an average deviation from 25 that would mean 60 degrees was as good as -10. I have experienced temperatures of -10 degrees (I think), and though it wasn't anywhere near ideal I didn't die. At 60 degrees (which it has never been anywhere ever on Earth since records began) I think it would be very difficult to survive for extended periods of time.
Homicide rates: fair to look at. Though, while insecure Europeans *desperate* to find anything to cling to to prop up their sanctimonious condemnation of Americans as inferior love to jump on the lower homicide rates in *some* European countries as justification for her smugness, the difference in probability that you will be murdered in any of these countries is absolutely minuscule. The chance that you'll be the victim of terrorism is even less. Yes, even in Israel.
governance: hard to measure accurately.
gender equality: Good to include. But I can think of far better ways to measure this.
If everyone in the world were told that their children had to live in another country other than the one they currently live in (and using only the criteria of health, safety and prosperity to decide), the vast majority would choose the United States. But the USA is 15th on their list. So this is a list of someone's idea of what the answer should be, but not what actual people would choose.
It's based on data points which I listed above. Of course someone had to choose which data points to factor in but aside from that it's not really a matter of opinion, with a few exception (such as the thing I pointed out above about the ideal temperature being a frigid 14 degrees Celsius.)
Incidentally I think there is another quiz on the site somewhere about which countries people most want to emigrate to. The USA obviously was at the top of the list for that one. But... maybe that's just a result of better PR? Hollywood? The fact that the US is full of immigrants and many people around the world have family there already? I don't think it's objectively the best place in the world to try and immigrate to. Howevver that's different from being the best place in the world to be born in.
People who only know about the US from TV and movies would probably choose to live there but most educated people wouldn't. The list is based on different criteria (like unemployment, life expectancy, gender equality) that try to objectively measure which countries would be the best to live in. No one claimed that those were the countries people would choose to live in.
Only ignorant people would try to claim that the US was somehow a bad place to live due to economics, life expectancy, or gender equality. It's not a product of poor education that people want to go there, though yes, American culture as depicted in Hollywood movies is definitely part of the draw. No need to smear immigrants to the US as uneducated just to prop up your own biases. I made a similar point immediately before yours but didn't feel the need to tag on the uneducated thing.
if by "Palestinian" you mean Israeli Muslim or Israeli Christian or Israeli who self-identifies as "Arab"... it's still far, far better to be born in Israel than in... Egypt, or Lebanon, or Jordan, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, or the Islamic State, or Sudan, or Somalia, or Djibouti, or Eritrea, or Libya, or Iran, or Turkey, or Armenia.... those are your options in the area.
If by "Palestinian" you mean non-Israeli citizen born to parents from the "West Bank"... well... even if you live out your entire life in Ramallah or Nablus, you're going to be much better off than the average Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi or resident of Daesh and you'll enjoy much better freedoms and opportunities than residents of Saudi Arabia or Iran. And you would also have greater opportunity to become an Israeli citizen than residents of Beirut or Amman which, if you pursued, would make your life better.
If by "Palestinian" you mean resident of Gaza, yeah, that would suck.
If Napoleon Bonaparte can find time to whisper from the great beyond his thoughts on what it means to be born in Israel, I can find time to answer back with my own.
Thank the lord for Kalby. He (for he must be a he, surely Shirley) is a much needed JP eccentric. It gives him a role, if nothing else...gawd bless ya KB!
America is pretty far down the list in the minds of whoever created this list. It's the most guessed answer however, so I think we can see who's winning in the court of public opinion :-)
Poeple who do not know much about the UAE need to educate themselves. You will be surprised how good they have it there in the UAE, esp. Dubai. Dubai is like a paradise....15 million tourist every year visit it. They are surely doing something right.
Social welfare is incredibly strong... probably to the point of being excessive there. The government is very wealthy. It's GDP per capita score is probably the thing that gives it the most points on the above criteria. There are other problems with the UAE, though, and it falls short in most of the other metrics used for the list.
Interesting...USA comes in at 16th, but then why in heck does everybody and their cousins try to get in here by hook or crook, risking their lives in many cases?
Both the Americans crying about the USA placing less than 1st, and the Europeans crying about the USA placing at all or above whatever country they happen to be from: you both look pathetic. And most of the people here commenting on the Middle East appear simply ignorant. Not going to reply to every one of you individually so this takes care of all of them...
Most of the countries are pretty obvious except for Israel. It doesn't really seem like a safe country...
And it might be a good idea to clarify that "small" country refers to population not area and maybe add the exact cutoff point. Otherwise excluding Iceland for being too small but including Singapore doesn't make any sense.
It's an extremely safe country. Beautiful. Vibrant. Full of friendly people. Well developed. Clean. Rich in history and culture. I lived there for a while. Have you ever been?
If by "most of" you're speaking purely in terms of geographic area I think I probably agree with you. If by "most you" you're talking about the urban and suburban areas where the majority of Americans are born, then I think you're probably wrong. However, I would much rather be born in Japan than in the United Arab Emirates. If this list were based on opinion and not a simple calculation then I would find this odd.
See my post above about the criteria. It's objective and based on numbers, not opinion. You've been brainwashed into hating your own country or falsely believing that the grass is greener elsewhere.
Thanks for having the courage to admit that, Geo. You've taken the first step toward recovery. Looking at the world with an open mind in an objective and properly skeptical way is an exciting thing when you do it for the first time so I envy you. Good luck!
Based on the criteria I detailed above if I had to guess I would say 1. high divorce rate 2. lower GDP per capita than many other countries on the list (using Purchasing Power Parity, due to the high cost of living in the UK) 3. higher crime rates than many Western European countries (though the difference is even more negligible than the difference between the US and those same Western European countries) 4. and they were probably docked points for climate due to all the rain.
Wikipedia should never be used as a source because it's always citing another source itself. In this case, it's citing an Economist article from 2012 making predictions about the best places to be born in 2013. The data was already kinda stale when this quiz was made in 2017. Beyond that, there was highly subjective primary research done and even the objective secondary research is rife with cultural biases. But what it does do really, really well is start conversations about these sorts of ideas and what we should be valuing, and that is important.
This quiz should be in 2 parts: 1) Which country is it best to be Born Rich in? ....... 2) Which country is it best to be Born Poor in? ........ Many so called poor countries have the richest people living the life of Gods ..... and some 'Rich countries' have plenty of poverty.
Apparently, this list (not the quiz) is limited to "best" conditions for "western-lifestyle males who happen to practice the dominant religion imposed in their country or that are so rich that religion is not an issue"
yeah... back after stalwart Republican and noted conservative Franklin Roosevelt and his famous Same Old Deal did nothing to change the country, right? Back when the highest marginal tax rate on the wealthy was 90%, just like Grover Norquist always advocates for.
Oh the 50s. When taxes were the highest ever, government spending was through the roof, the social safety net was being expanded, the GI Bill was sending thousands of young men to college, and the government was pursuing vast infrastructure projects. On the economic side of things, the 50s were a liberals dream. What we've been living in since the 80s is a conservative dream.
That said, the UAE borders Saudi Arabia and Oman. Neither are "very violent." Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world and Oman, by Middle Eastern standards, is downright pleasant. South Korea is a beautiful and peaceful country in spite of technically being at war with the north since the 1950s, and we can hope that the bluster from Pyongyang is not turned into all out catastrophe by the idiot currently occupying the White House; most analysts believe that it won't be. Germany and Scandinavia certainly have their problems, Muslim/South Asian rape gangs amongst them, though you'll find plenty of those in the UK as well. Shockingly large numbers of them, actually, many ineffectively prosecuted by police for fear of appearing racist. Meanwhile Iberia is still dealing with economic recession and massive unemployment. And they have immigrants, too.
The independent variables in the estimating equation for 2006 include:
Material well-being as measured by GDP per capita (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS)
Life expectancy at birth
The quality of family life based primarily on divorce rates
The state of political freedoms
Job security (measured by the unemployment rate)
Climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm rainfall)
Personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism)
Quality of community life (based on membership in social organisations)
Governance (measured by ratings for corruption)
Gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women)
CLIMATE! yes finally a list that includes that. But... but... wtf!!?? FOURTEEN!!!?? 14 is NOT the ideal temperature. It would be maybe 25. Is this organization based in Iceland?
Material well-being, fine. Though I don't think GDP tells the whole story maybe include happiness index or suicide rates.
I would not count divorce rates as a bad thing. Having a realistic understanding of relationship dynamics and acknowledging that sometimes marriages ought to end is a good thing. Much better than, say, the Philippines where divorce is illegal. Though better to not get married at all.
Unemployment rate: probably as I guessed before a big part of why Spain is omitted.
governance: hard to measure accurately.
gender equality: Good to include. But I can think of far better ways to measure this.
If by "Palestinian" you mean non-Israeli citizen born to parents from the "West Bank"... well... even if you live out your entire life in Ramallah or Nablus, you're going to be much better off than the average Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi or resident of Daesh and you'll enjoy much better freedoms and opportunities than residents of Saudi Arabia or Iran. And you would also have greater opportunity to become an Israeli citizen than residents of Beirut or Amman which, if you pursued, would make your life better.
If by "Palestinian" you mean resident of Gaza, yeah, that would suck.