The 'Best' Countries In The World Have Changed A Lot Since 1988

Business Insider ^ | 01/22/2013 | Rob Wile

[SeekAndFind]

The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published its "Where To Be Born in 2013" list, a measure of which countries provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.

WOND, an infographics and data visualization outfit based outside London, has put together a great repackaging of the data, which also included the list from 1988.

Needless to say, things have changed over the past 25 years.

With their permission, we're republishing it here. (Check them out at wond.co.uk).

WOND/EIU

And here are the measures: 

• Material wellbeing as measured by GDP per head (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS)
• Life expectancy at birth
• 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)

[cuban leaf]

Austrailia is number two. I find that interesting. If I had time I’d like to analyze the criteria they used, but I suspect it is like the WHO list regarding quality of health care that puts the US way down the list.

[SeekAndFind]

The measures are given. If the US is way down the list due to healthcare, then the other measures should have pulled it up sufficiently to make the top 10 at least ( NOTE: we were number 1 in 1988 ):

_____________________

Material wellbeing as measured by GDP per head (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS)

Life expectancy at birth

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)

[cuban leaf]

Yes, I saw that list, but the devil is in the details. I used WHO as an example because their weighting of data points and methods of measurement worked against the US. To give one example:

The US was considered poor in health care because one of the biggest and heavily weighted metrics was equality of care. IOW, a country that had poor quality health care, but it was poor for everyone, did better than the US because some get the best health care on the planet and some get none.

[peteyd]

Can you please give this info to the illegals that are here and leaflet south of the border with this info?

[Chipper]

But America was such a horrible place to live after years of Reaganomics. /S

[driftless2]

The U.S. is still far and away (even with the present Marxist in the Oval Office) the best country in the world to be born. Because the U.S. is still the best place where an average person can realize their dreams and live their life without the heavy hand of government telling them when to breathe and when not to. At least at the present. More presidents like Obama and we'll be somewhere on the level of those Euro states who meekly take orders from their masters in government and turn over most of their income to the state so others can have off 60 sick days a year or whatever reason.

Most of these lists of best countries have the premise that the country where the government "gives" the most to the average citizen are the best countries. In short, the countries where the citizen is just a cog in the machinery are considered great places to live. Not for me, thank you very much.

[Verginius Rufus]

In 1988, it was better to be born in the Soviet Union than in Denmark or Israel?

I guess that's why Israelis were always trying to get exit visas so they could emigrate to the Soviet Union.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Because the U.S. is still the best place where an average person can realize their dreams and live their life without the heavy hand of government telling them when to breathe and when not to.

I guess it depends on which state you live in. Some states have less government intervention than others.

That was the genius of our founding fathers — They made STATE RIGHTS constitutionally STRONG. Whether we can keep it that way or not remains to be seen.