Global Quality of Life: Australia and US on Top

[bullet308]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/daily-chart-1?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/dc/thewealthofnations



Good news for the US: In overall quality of life, we rank behind only Australia. Go USA! Go Oz! Wooo! :-)

Bad news: the average American is fairing approximately as well as the bottom 20% of Australians. The disparity between our top 20% and bottom 20% is both striking and disturbing. This is a recipe for future social and political instability on a large scale.   

Discuss.   

[tom66]

Based on personal surveys, I would guess. Depends on how honest and open people are. Australia's HDI is 0.929 and US is 0.910, and this is a defined metric based on measurable variables. However Norway wins at 0.943... and us Brits are stuck at a measily 0.863 .

[bullet308]

Meaningless...

Define "quality of life". What nonsense ^_^

Actually, they seem to be trying to evaluate overall quality of life by employing a number of objective metrics:

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

Of course, such a thing can be very tricky to define. Still, it is interesting, even if it is not definitive.

[Kevin.D]

Total nonsense .With a load of meaningless (and broken by the looks of it)statsistics to produce the desired outcome by the authors .lol 

[EEVblog]

Since when has the US even been ranked in the top 10 in these lists?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index

And no US cities ever rank in the to p10 most liveable cities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_most_livable_cities
Oz takes 4 places in the top 10 according to one index 

Dave.

[EEVblog]

Actually, they seem to be trying to evaluate overall quality of life by employing a number of objective metrics:
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
Of course, such a thing can be very tricky to define. Still, it is interesting, even if it is not definitive.

I don't think it's rubbish, there is certainly something to it, and you can at least get a rough indication of how good or bad a country or city is to live, at least when you compare ones far enough apart on the index.
e.g. pollution, crime, unemployment, cost of living, green space, public transport etc etc

Dave.

[Rerouter]

all i can say is

"The Census report, like most such surveys, had cost an awful lot of money and told nobody anything they didn't already know -- except that every single person in the Galaxy had 2.4  legs and owned a hyena. Since this was clearly not true the whole thing eventually had to be scrapped." - Douglas Adams: So Long, And thanks for all the fish.

the quality of the survey comes down to the quality of your subject group, aussies tend to act happy go lucky or all 4's and 5's on surveys, unless they actively have a problem with the subject,

and the us while i cant really comment, i would guess they would be more likely to want to look successful and thus write higher scores, (this is similar to my thoughts on aussies dont take it personally)

[bullet308]

When looking at the US stats, they make intuitive sense to me. There is a lot of money floating around here and cost of living is relatively cheap in most places. However, the money is no where near evenly distributed so there is a huge disparity between those that have and those that do not. The good news is a lot of people in the US are in the "have" category and thus have a lot to be happy for. The bad news is that the "have not" category is both large and growing. The level of disparity we see is untenable...and growing worse, and that big gap in between the extremes is becoming depopulated as the middle class is eroded. This does not bode well.

[EEVblog]

Don't tell me that 12.7  million  unemployed people are statistically more happy than 80.000..
*snip*

I am very surprised that the US is 2nd on the list.
These lists are many and varied, but the constant seems to be that US never seems to make the cut, and it makes sense why.
Not sure what's makes this one different?
Oz, the nordic countries, Canada, NZ et.al always seem to be the front runners.

Dave.

[_Sin]

I am very surprised that the US is 2nd on the list.
These lists are many and varied, but the constant seems to be that US never seems to make the cut, and it makes sense why.
Not sure what's makes this one different?
Oz, the nordic countries, Canada, NZ et.al always seem to be the front runners.

One thing I noticed, is that in "health" (for example) there are two indicators used to calculate the overall result.

One is the average life expectancy, which seems like a reasonable *objective* metric of the available healthcare.
The other is how "well" people *say* they are. That's obviously open to intepretation, but I suppose there's an argument that if people *feel* well, then their quality of life may be considered better, even if that are not, in fact, actually any more healthy (or perhaps less so) than other countries.

There's also, obviously, a question of how the survey data was obtained, how the questions were worded, who was asked, etc.

In the case of the US, they are fairly well down the list in terms of life expectancy, but high in terms of how healthy people say they feel.

So the US is a country in which people generally feel healthy and looked after, but actually die younger, on average, than most other countries.

[SeanB]

Thanks Eric................... 

[G7PSK]

How can any one claim to have a good quality of life when the are holed up in their bunkerised home armed to the teeth in mortal fear of all who pass or come to their door.

[bullet308]

How can any one claim to have a good quality of life when the are holed up in their bunkerised home armed to the teeth in mortal fear of all who pass or come to their door.

 I thing everybody should find peace and happines in their own hart, and then show it, share it and help others to find it..(without religion, colour of skin and politics) that`s the right way to go..

But that is my opinion..

I certainly think you are right.

It might please you to know that the great majority of Americans live very much as you say.

And G7PSK:

Hate to break it to you, bit dont live in bunkers, thankyouverymuch. Methinks you trust in the media a tad too much.

Oh, but wait...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

Seems that the Guardian doesn't think the US is necessarily all THAT violent.  Now, if if lived in the UK, perhaps a bunker would be indeed in order...