I’m looking for perspectives on which countries most effectively combine high quality of life with low social and economic inequality.
I’m looking for perspectives on which countries most effectively combine high quality of life with low social and economic inequality.
You might want to look at the IHDI, inequality-adjusted human development index.
It takes the life expectancy, years of education, and GNI (PPP) per capita, and adjusts it for inequality.
Ideally it shouldn’t even take GNI into account, imho (but an economic type-agnostic system, that takes the environment into account as well).
The top 15 is:
Iceland (Nordics)
Norway (Nordics)
Denmark (Nordics)
Switzerland (Central Europe)
Netherlands (Western Europe)
Belgium (Western Europe)
Finland (Nordics)
Germany (Central Europe)
Sweden (Nordics)
Ireland (Western Europe)
Slovenia (Southeast Europe)
Australia (Oceania)
United Kingdom (Western Europe)
Canada (North America)
Czech Republic (Central Europe)
The IHDI still has some issues, though, like not taking workplace democracy, environment and sustainability, and public transit into account. Had that been done, Spain probably would rise quite a bit higher.
I’d also add that a lot of these countries have very strict immigration policies.
As an Aussie I so want to be in France, but they’re not immigrant friendly so that seems out, so I’m stuck in this shit hole
France isnt even on the list.
France’s actually pretty okay. France’s on place 27. Spain’s 33. But that’s shared with Hungary. And the US is on 29.
You should therefore not base your decision exclusively off from IHDI, but on your particular situation. IHDI is primarily useful as a rough indicator for what places have good healthcare, equality, and education.
I don’t know if there’s an index for how democratic a country is (that takes into account horizontal organisation, workplace democracy & pro-unionism). But an improved IHDI would take into account the things I mentioned in my previous comment.
It’d also be useful to include pedestrian and bicycle friendliness, as well as social progress, wealth inequality, and corruption. With all things considered, the US and Hungary would drop much more.