Where to be born

Scandinavians absolutely blitz the field. Got to hand it to them. I've heard they have very high taxes and an egalitarian social structure - perhaps the way of the future?? Won't be long before they get overrun with new comers wanting a slice of the pie!

THE WHERE-TO-BE-BORN INDEX, 2013

RANK COUNTRY SCORE*

1 Switzerland 8.22
2 Australia 8.12
3 Norway 8.09
4 Sweden 8.02
5 Denmark 8.01
6 Singapore 8.00
7 New Zealand 7.95
8 Netherlands 7.94
9 Canada 7.81
10 Hong Kong 7.80
11 Finland 7.76
12 Ireland 7.74
13 Austria 7.73
14 Taiwan 7.67
15 Belgium 7.51
=16 Germany 7.38
=16 United States 7.38
18 UAE 7.33
19 South Korea 7.25
20 Israel 7.23
21 Italy 7.21
22 Kuwait 7.18
=23 Chile 7.10
=23 Cyprus 7.10
25 Japan 7.08
26 France 7.04
27 Britain 7.01
=28 Czech Republic 6.96
=28 Spain 6.96
=30 Costa Rica 6.92
=30 Portugal 6.92
32 Slovenia 6.77
33 Poland 6.66
34 Greece 6.65
35 Slovakia 6.64
36 Malaysia 6.62
37 Brazil 6.52
38 Saudi Arabia 6.49
39 Mexico 6.41
=40 Argentina 6.39
=40 Cuba 6.39
42 Colombia 6.27
43 Peru 6.24
=44 Estonia 6.07
=44 Venezuela 6.07
=46 Croatia 6.06
=46 Hungary 6.06
48 Latvia 6.01
49 China 5.99
50 Thailand 5.96
51 Turkey 5.95
52 Dominican Republic 5.93
53 South Africa 5.89
=54 Algeria 5.86
=54 Serbia 5.86
56 Romania 5.85
57 Lithuania 5.82
58 Iran 5.78
59 Tunisia 5.77
60 Egypt 5.76
61 Bulgaria 5.73
62 El Salvador 5.72
=63 Philippines 5.71
=63 Sri Lanka 5.71
65 Ecuador 5.70
=66 India 5.67
=66 Morocco 5.67
68 Vietnam 5.64
69 Jordan 5.63
70 Azerbaijan 5.60
71 Indonesia 5.54
72 Russia 5.31
73 Syria 5.29
74 Kazakhstan 5.20
75 Pakistan 5.17
76 Angola 5.09
77 Bangladesh 5.07
78 Ukraine 4.98
79 Kenya 4.91
80 Nigeria 4.74

*Score out of a maximum of 10. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit

Small economies dominate the top ten. Half of these are European, but only one, the Netherlands, is from the euro zone. The Nordic countries shine, whereas the crisis-ridden south of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain) lags behind despite the advantage of a favourable climate. The largest European economies (Germany, France and Britain) do not do particularly well.

America, where babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place. Despite their economic dynamism, none of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) scores impressively. Among the 80 countries covered, Nigeria comes last: it is the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013.

Boring is best

Quibblers will, of course, find more holes in all this than there are in a chunk of Swiss cheese. America was helped to the top spot back in 1988 by the inclusion in the ranking of a “philistine factor” (for cultural poverty) and a “yawn index” (the degree to which a country might, despite all its virtues, be irredeemably boring). Switzerland scored terribly on both counts. In the film “The Third Man”, Orson Welles’s character, the rogue Harry Lime, famously says that Italy for 30 years had war, terror and murder under the Borgias but in that time produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance; Switzerland had 500 years of peace and democracy””and produced the cuckoo clock.

However, there is surely a lot to be said for boring stability in today’s (and no doubt tomorrow’s) uncertain times. A description of the methodology is available here: food for debate all the way from Lucerne to Lagos.

Click to expand...

http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life
http://www.economist.com/news/21567049-how-we-calculated-life-satisfaction-lottery-life-methodology
Makes more sense after reading the article, and having a look at the methodogogy. They've used some forward-looking logic to arrive at likely GDP when a baby born now will be 18, and although they've built in some gender-equality factors (no of seats held by females in parliament) I'm not sure that every baby girl born in 2013 would necessarily agree with their rankings. Will be interesting to see.....

Interesting post GB

Have never been to Switzerland or the Scandinavian region, but I can say that I'm absolutely glad to have been born in Aussieland and annoy my kids endlessly by reminding them often how lucky they are to be living in the (second) best country in the world.