Quality of life sets new standards
We come across a lot of ‘rankings’ by various organizations and all are about the richest, best, highest, most…. All superlatives. The latest ranking is pretty interesting – by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Better Life Index, which ranked Australia as the happiest industrialized country in the world. This was a ranking of the world's developed economies on criteria such as jobs, income, environment and health.
34 industrialised countries were ranked, and in second place came Sweden, followed by Canada. Australia has consistently grown for 21 years without a recession and unemployment was at 5.5% compared to 12.1% of the Eurozone.
Norway comes in at number four, followed by Switzerland and USA comes in at 6th place. In 10th place in UK. All the Scandanavian countries list in the top 10 – Sweden, Norway, Denmark and even Iceland at number 9. It is only Finland which has not made it to the top 10.
Yes, there is life beyond GDP and economic statistics and that is what really matters to people living a life. It is also equally true that unless economic progress is made, quality of life will not improve. So both are essential to lead a balanced better life.