Economist Chart: Canada 9th Best Country to be Born in; China 49th

Posted by david on Jan 3, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

If you believe in such rankings, what a difference 25 years make.  

Back in 1988, of the 50 countries cited in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) then lighthearted “Where to Born In” chart, USA was on top of the world; in the latest (2013) chart, it’s tumbled to 16th.   Canada was 5th; in Greater China, Hong Kong tied with the UK for 7th (Taiwan wasn’t not included); and China came in 32nd.  The USSR placed 21st and India 27th.    

25 years later, of 80 countries in the EIU’s more serious where-to-be-born index ranking, Canada is down a bit to 9th, followed by Hong Kong at 10th and Taiwan 14th while mainland China is much further down at 49th.   Other BRICS states didn’t fair so well either:  Brazil (37th), South Africa (53rd), India (66th) and Russia (72nd). 

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A QUARTER of a century ago, The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born. Then, America came top (see chart on left). Now the Economist Intelligence Unit has more earnestly calculated where would be best to be born in 2013. Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts—things like crime and trust in public institutions matter too. In all, the index takes 11 indicators into account. Some are fixed, such as geography; others change only very slowly over time (demography, social and cultural characteristics).