Aye thang yewe. Take my wife... please.
etc.
What prompted this was a post on a discussion board about tax. This included a table showing what proportion of each nation's GDP was provided by taxation. I wondered if there was a connection between this and quality of life. Loosely there is, albeit with exceptions.
And there, at least in 2005, was the Irish republic, sitting proudly at the top of the pile. I wonder if it still does?
Rank | Country or territory | Quality of Life Score (out of 10) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Ireland | 8.333 |
| 2 |  Switzerland | 8.068 |
| 3 |  Norway | 8.051 |
| 4 |  Luxembourg | 8.015 |
| 5 |  Sweden | 7.937 |
| 6 |  Australia | 7.925 |
| 7 |  Iceland | 7.911 |
| 8 |  Italy | 7.810 |
| 9 |  Denmark | 7.797 |
| 10 |  Spain | 7.727 |
| 11 |  Singapore | 7.719 |
| 12 |  Finland | 7.618 |
| 13 |  United States | 7.615 |
| 14 |  Canada | 7.599 |
| 15 |  New Zealand | 7.436 |
| 16 |  Netherlands | 7.433 |
| 17 |  Japan | 7.392 |
| 18 |  Hong Kong | 7.347 |
| 19 |  Portugal | 7.307 |
| 20 |  Austria | 7.268 |
| 21 |  Taiwan | 7.259 |
| 22 |  Greece | 7.163 |
| 23 |  Cyprus | 7.097 |
| 24 |  Belgium | 7.095 |
| 25 |  France | 7.084 |
| 26 |  Germany | 7.048 |
| 27 |  Slovenia | 6.986 |
| 28 |  Malta | 6.934 |
| 29 |  United Kingdom | 6.917 |
| 30 |  South Korea | 6.877 |
| 31 |  Chile | 6.789 |
| 32 |  Mexico | 6.766 |
| 33 |  Barbados | 6.702 |
| 34 |  Czech Republic | 6.629 |
| 35 |  Costa Rica | 6.624 |
| 36 |  Malaysia | 6.608 |
| 37 |  Hungary | 6.534 |
| 38 |  Israel | 6.488 |
| 39 |  Brazil | 6.470 |
| 40 |  Argentina | 6.469 |
| 41 |  Qatar | 6.462 |
| 42 |  Thailand | 6.436 |
| 43 |  Sri Lanka | 6.417 |
| 44 |  Philippines | 6.403 |
| 45 |  Slovakia | 6.381 |
| 46 |  Uruguay | 6.368 |
| 47 |  Panama | 6.361 |
| 48 |  Poland | 6.309 |
| 49 |  Croatia | 6.301 |
| 50 |  Turkey | 6.286 |
| 51 |  Trinidad and Tobago | 6.278 |
| 52 |  Ecuador | 6.272 |
| 53 |  Peru | 6.216 |
| 54 |  Colombia | 6.176 |
| 55 |  Kuwait | 6.171 |
| 56 |  El Salvador | 6.164 |
| 57 |  Bulgaria | 6.162 |
| 58 |  Romania | 6.105 |
| 59 |  Venezuela | 6.089 |
| 60 |  China | 6.083 |
| 61 |  Vietnam | 6.080 |
| 62 |  Bahrain | 6.035 |
| 63 |  Lithuania | 6.033 |
| 64 |  Jamaica | 6.022 |
| 65 |  Morocco | 6.018 |
| 66 |  Latvia | 6.008 |
| 67 |  Oman | 5.916 |
| 68 |  Estonia | 5.905 |
| 69 |  United Arab Emirates | 5.899 |
| 70 |  Libya | 5.849 |
| 71 |  Indonesia | 5.814 |
| 72 |  Saudi Arabia | 5.767 |
| 73 |  India | 5.759 |
| 74 |  Paraguay | 5.756 |
| 75 |  Jordan | 5.675 |
| 76 |  Nicaragua | 5.663 |
| 77 |  Bangladesh | 5.646 |
| 78 |  Albania | 5.634 |
| 79 |  Dominican Republic | 5.630 |
| 80 |  Egypt | 5.605 |
| 81 |  Algeria | 5.571 |
| 82 |  Bolivia | 5.492 |
| 83 |  Tunisia | 5.472 |
| 84 |  Serbia | 5.428 |
| 85 |  Armenia | 5.422 |
| 86 |  Azerbaijan | 5.377 |
| 87 |  Georgia | 5.365 |
| 88 |  Iran | 5.343 |
| 89 |  Macedonia | 5.337 |
| 90 |  Guatemala | 5.321 |
| 91 |  Honduras | 5.250 |
| 92 |  South Africa | 5.245 |
| 93 |  Pakistan | 5.229 |
| 94 |  Bosnia and Herzegovina | 5.218 |
| 95 |  Ghana | 5.174 |
| 96 |  Kazakhstan | 5.082 |
| 97 |  Syria | 5.052 |
| 98 |  Ukraine | 5.032 |
| 99 |  Moldova | 5.009 |
| 100 |  Belarus | 4.978 |
| 101 |  Uganda | 4.879 |
| 102 |  Turkmenistan | 4.870 |
| 103 |  Kyrgyzstan | 4.846 |
| 104 |  Botswana | 4.810 |
| 105 |  Russia | 4.796 |
| 106 |  Uzbekistan | 4.767 |
| 107 |  Tajikistan | 4.754 |
| 108 |  Nigeria | 4.505 |
| 109 |  Tanzania | 4.495 |
| 110 |  Haiti | 4.090 |
| 111 |  Zimbabwe | 3.892 |
3 comments:
I strongly believe, and I would provide a bevvy of economists to back me up but I don't know any, that you have your cause and effect the wrong way round. As a socialist, I believe, you are wishful thinking that high levels of taxation and therefore public expenditure create a higher per capita GDP. However I think the higher per capita GDP leads to both demands from the populace and opportunities for the politicians to flatten out the wealth graph and make society more equitable. i.e. A thriving and affluent economy yields more taxation opportunities and greater opportunities to further public expenditure. I wish I hadn't typed this.
I didn't state the order of cause and effect. I did not say one caused the other or vice versa. I said that there appeared to be a loose connection.
What I should have done is included a link to the wikipedia page, and the criteria used to define what "quality of life" is.
Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index
And here's the criteria.
Methodology
The survey uses nine quality of life factors to determine a nation's score.[1] They are listed below including the indicators used to represent these factors:
Health: Life expectancy at birth (in years). Source: US Census Bureau
Family life: Divorce rate (per 1,000 population), converted into index of 1 (lowest divorce rates) to 5 (highest). Sources: UN; Euromonitor
Community life: Variable taking value 1 if country has either high rate of church attendance or trade-union membership; zero otherwise. Source: World Values Survey
Material well being: GDP per person, at PPP in $. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
Political stability and security: Political stability and security ratings. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
Climate and geography: Latitude, to distinguish between warmer and colder climates. Source: CIA World Factbook
Job security: Unemployment rate (%.) Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
Political freedom: Average of indexes of political and civil liberties. Scale of 1 (completely free) to 7 (unfree). Source: Freedom House
Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female earnings. Source: UNDP Human Development Report
I vaguely recall reading an article about a more recent study earlier this year. I can't find any hard data but I seem to remember that Ireland has indeed dropped from first place, but not as far as might be expected given the upheaval of the past couple of years.
The drop isn't surprising... just on Job Security alone, we've taken a real hit lately, and that feeds into other aspects of life. But we do still have a functioning and - relatively speaking, decent - welfare state (not going to predict for how much longer) which has provided a safety net of sorts for most of the recently unemployed.
Aside from that, the much-discussed "austerity measures" have yet to really bite into front line services (such as health and education) though there's no doubt that they will before too long, so I'd expect to see a further drop in Ireland's Quality of Life index over the next few years.
That said, I imagine it'll be mirrored in most other nations, so we may retain something close to our position in the "league table" for what it's worth.
Overall, I still think Ireland is one of the better placed nations to weather the coming economic and environmental storms (globally, we're only just experiencing the initial squalls at the moment) thanks to our population density Vs carrying capacity. I do worry about our collective ability to capitalise on this advantage though... our decisions haven't exactly been great recently.
Post a Comment