The world’s best country

Based on article from 'The Economist - The World in 2005'

Ireland tops the list as the best place to live in 2005

The Economist has come up with the best place to live in the world in 2005. The result: Ireland. Despite being the second-richest country in the world, America slips to 13th in quality of life whereas Britain lies in 29th place.

It is obvious that material possessions and income cannot alone measure quality of life. However, surveys taken over the years have come to show that drastic increases in income have not led to a proportional increase in quality of life.

The Economist has taken a new approach to combine in a single, comparative statistic the factors believed to influence people’s happiness. Using life-satisfaction surveys they have taken factors such as income, health, freedom, unemployment, family life, climate, political stability and security, gender equality and family and community life. Feeding these factors into an equation, has resulted in a quality-of-life index.

Ireland wins because of its successful combination of certain factors having the fourth highest GDP in the world in 2005, low unemployment and also manages to maintain traditional values such as family and community life.

However, Britain mixes high income per head with high levels of social and family breakdown. China, despite all the excitement over its large increases in the rate of economic growth, falls in the lower half of the league at sixty out of hundred and eleven nations. Zimbabwe languishes at the bottom of the league, where the situation has deteriorated from bad to worse under Robert Mugabe.

No doubt critics will poke holes into this index but not the people in Ireland.