Archives for November 22nd, 2004

The Economist’s 2005 quality-of-life index. (Click to expand)

According to The World in 2005, Slovenia is the 27th greatest country in our solar system, just behind Germany and France and ahead of Britain and South Korea. Ireland is the most awesome country in the known galaxy, followed by Switzerland and Norway. In fact, European countries nearly swept the top ten. Only Australia (#6) prevented a total rout. Interestingly, though, none of the so-called "big three" made it into the top ten — or even the top twenty.

The Economist Intelligence Unit used the following factors to determine their scores:

• income (measured by GDP per person)
• health (measured by life expectancy)
• freedom (civil liberties)
• unemployment
• family life (measured by divorce rate)
• climate (measured by latitude)
• political stability and security
• gender equality (ratio of male to female earnings)
• family and community life (church attendance and/or trade union membership)

You can read all about their methodology here. [pdf] In the meantime, many Slovenes will be happy to see that the country is comparable to Germany and France, outranks Britain, and is well ahead of Croatia, which is nestled between Poland and Turkey at spot 49. Croatians, in turn, can take comfort in the fact that Serbia-Montenegro is all the way down in 84th place — and behind Albania. If Serbs can recover from their collective heart attack, they can find solace in the fact that they’re ahead of Bosnia-Hercegovina. And Bosnians can be proud of the fact that, despite hosting Europe’s most destructive war since WWII, they’re still ahead of Russia and 17 other countries.

Of course, studies like this don’t matter too much, except as talking points. You could also do a study to find the world’s most greatest color by measuring how often it appears in clothes and buildings, how people rate it, if it’s natural or man-made, etc… In the end, all it boils down to is personal preference.

I like purple.