Quality of Life around the World. The Independent 15/06/2015

Quality of life around the world revealed and Britain doesn't even make the top 10, says new index

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/uk-16th-in-the-world-for-quality-of-life-says-new-index-10321223.html

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A festival worker takes time out to practice yoga in the stone circle at the Glastonbury Festival site at Worthy Farm, in Pilton on 14 June 2011 in Glastonbury, England.

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The index placed Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan above the UK in terms of quality of life

Louis Doré

Monday 15 June 2015

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The UK has come 16th in a quality of life index of world nations.

The index placed Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan above the UK in terms of quality of life, as the country placed 9th in Europe.

The data from Numbeo, the world’s largest database

of user-generated content about cities and countries, was collated from online surveys, not official government reports.

The UK also ranked 20th in terms of the lowest pollution and 23rd in terms of healthcare.

Switzerland topped those countries participating in the index, topping the purchasing power index and the consumer price index categories. Meanwhile Japan was found to have the highest health care index.

Venezuela was found to have the worst quality of life, with Mongolia and Vietnam following.

The index is an estimation of overall quality of life based upon several criteria, of which the highest weight is given to pollution.

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Numbeo say this is "on the grounds that if the environment is polluted too much, the economy or safety cannot fulfill it."

"We put the second highest importance to safety, since it is more important to feel safe rather than wealthy, in our opinion."

See the infographic below, courtesy of MoveHub

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52 Comments Post a Comment

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kedeshah 4 days ago

Well just wait till the 13 billion cuts in welfare spending make like a hoot for some, while the majority learn what street life is all about.

Who needs a list where most people will find themselves in a few years?

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Meranerin 5 days ago

The quality of life in the UK is pretty lousy in comparison with other western European countries like France, Germany and Austria but I agree with the comments that you cannot take a survey seriously that says Saudia Arabia has a higher quality of life. Clearly the survey was done by men!!

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berlingooner 5 days ago

When is the Indy going to move to a paid subscription model so it can avoid having to lower the standard of it's content with advertorial rubbish like this ?

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RightLeft 5 days ago

Saudi Arabia has a higher quality of life than the UK? What a load of BS. Any country where I can't legally enjoy a pint is definitely far lower than the UK in my books.

And what about all the Bangladeshi migrant workers in Saudi Arabia? The way they get treated I'm sure they don't think their quality of life is that great.

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justme 5 days ago

"The index placed Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan above the UK in terms of quality of life,"

Not if you are female, christian or like the Ballet.

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Centaur 5 days ago

So now we know exactly where to direct all those immigrants currently clamouring to come here or elsewhere in europe.

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julian 5 days ago

What a joke ! I have lived in Germany for 7 years and it´s a good place tho live but the Uk despite all it´s so called problems is by far the best place to live in Europe because of it´s diversity , artistic talent, climate, natural history and freedom.

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Meranerin 5 days ago

It is a very personal thing and also depends where in each country you live. Much of northern Germany is very dreary like much of the UK. I have lived in Germany (Bavaria) too and found it infinitely better than the UK in almost every aspect that matters to me on both a practical level (health and other public services) and culture (classical music and a general emphasis on Hochkultur) and your description of the UK bears little relation to my experience of living there most of my life.

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rosetta 5 days ago

How on earth can Saudi be sixth when the misogyny and repression meted out to women must make their lives miserable?

One wonders who does these surveys. Idiotic. Ditto for Oman. These are countries where migrant workers are exploited, killed and treated like dirt.

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Bonavent 5 days ago

They probably do no count the women and slave workers from Asia.

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Bonavent 5 days ago

- or maybe they bought some votes the way they bought the football and handball championships!

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moonrage 5 days ago

Well is there any wonder in this green pleasant land. Lets see what can we put on the brochure ah yes, Welcome to Britain home of food banks where a million plus and growing numbers of malnourished people go to get fed, Britain is a proud country that likes to give austerity to the poor in return of cheap labour that prides itself on a minimum wage pittance on £6.50 an hour. There are many a once industrialised areas preferably in the North of England that were decimated under the once noble witch, sorry Lady Thatcher and have now been joyously transformed into barren wastelands where you can merrily skip over discarded heroin needles where that old pit used to be, you know the one where our proud police beat up that nasty Arthur Scargill and his band of nasty miners who had the nerve to fight for their jobs. As we reach the glowing capital of London we will be able to hop skip and jump over the thousands of growing in numbers of homeless people and give a tip but no bottles of rum please as we would not like them to be merry oh no give that donation to the city traders as they have worked hard to rob pension funds and wreck the economy. Now do be careful when you walk around some of these estates as our greedy, sorry our adoring property developers are just in the process of building more luxury penthouses to kick out the ungrateful tenants that live there. Well have a safe trip to Blighty don't forget to send our fraudently erm sorry our noble leader Cameron a postcard. Oh do return in 5 years time we guarantee to show you our Armegeddon feature! LOL!!!

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Squidapedoyt 5 days ago

Wish I'd written that! Wish I had more than one "recommend" to give it!

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Squidapedoyt 5 days ago

One thing which affects quality of life is equality versus inequality. Very unequal societies are sick societies, quite literally, with higher rates of illness both mental and physical, more stress, more crime, more violence, and are not even especially productive.

Current very high levels of inequality in the UK are not natural or inevitable. They are constructed, by laws which favour a small minority over the majority. They could be changed. They should be changed.

Meanwhile it is no surprise if the UK scores low on quality of life. Our masters have constructed a very ugly society, and we have let them get away with it.

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cynic48 5 days ago

Well, I have lived in Saudi and I have lived in UK and Netherlands and I can assure you there is very little quality of life in Saudi. So "rubbish" is my reaction to this survey.

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gordonmonkey 5 days ago

Yeah, Saudi is a great place to live if you're a woman wanting to drive, or an atheist blogger, not to mention the 100 executions carried out by the state this year as reported elsewhere on this site. I'm surprised Islamic State didn't make the top 10 also. What a moronic article.

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HappyDaze 5 days ago

Yeah, the balmy climate of Finland or the freedom to do as you please in Saudi Arabia!

So much better than the UK or Spain!

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Cassandroid 5 days ago

Honduras;

Murder Rate - 90.4

Life Wepectancy - 74

Cuba

Murder rate - 4.2

Life Expectancy - 79

It's a short life but a happy one in Honduras.

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RobynD 5 days ago

Questions papers should ask before publishing surveys.

1) Who compiled it?

2) What was their agenda?

I suspect this group have an agenda. You may have no pollution but if you can't be yourself, is that quality of life?

Click bait.

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laguerre 5 days ago

Turkmenistan: Somebody's been manipulating the figures. The level of life there is very low.

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RobynD 5 days ago

Saudi Arabia? The best quality of life if you are not a woman, gay or have a different opinion to the rulers.

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Silverthread 5 days ago

The new Tory government is not interested in the environment, health care nor care for the elderly or healthy living. It says it is, but it is not.

Leaving the EU will put an end to all the rules re healthy environment, use of pesticides, chemicals, hormones in cattle, restrictions and safety in the workplace and many other safeguards. That's why the Tories are so keen to leave because it will mean more money in the pockets of employers and less to worry about re health and safety and the environment. UKIP, just another Tory party, is even more keen and Nigel is known to favour the return to smoking in public, free alcohol use and does not believe global warming is an issue.

Our children are given less and less time for sport and social interaction. Schools and nurseries can now set their own playtimes and, because of the pressure to achieve and pass Ofsted inspections, many have reduced the time children can play and run around. Our local high schools, now academies, have reduced their lunch break by 15 minutes to 45 minutes. Enough time to feed the students but little time for them to kick a ball or just chill out.

There is so much push on 'healthy eating' but many families can never afford or know how to provide that for their families.

Parents are now pushed into work (often very low paid) and their young children are brought up in large groups by strangers without individual attention, many only coming home to sleep and spend a weekend with parents too busy with shopping and cleaning to give much time to them. One local nursery now opens in the weekend to cover for the many parents working shifts but other parents are paying extra to let their children be looked after to get some free time for themselves. That will have an affect on the family unit and individuals in years to come.

In the UK the £sign has become the master and everything else is second to it.

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TonySFO-YUL 5 days ago

The quality of your life depends a lot on what you make of it and not always related to your environment.

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gcarth 5 days ago

The quality of your life also depends on how privileged you are.

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HappyDaze 5 days ago

The privileged in Venezuela live behind locked gates topped with razor wire and when they do venture out it is only in daylight hours in armoured cars... fun fun fun!

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zycouna 5 days ago

How could Syria and Iraq not make the list as the worst countries? I guess wars,kidnapping, forced marriage, daily beheading and genocide are not factors that were taken into account. That, or everything we have been told about ISIS by The Independent and other media is fiction.

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VINOD 5 days ago

And, how did Saudi Arabia come to the sixth place in terms of quality of life? Freedom of expression and choice of religion are not taken into account.

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Franciscus 5 days ago

No, but it is very sunny there.

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Susan Antony 5 days ago

Yeah, those middle eastern countries have a higher quality of life than Canada. Sure thing.

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pete loud 5 days ago

". . . the worst quality of life, with Mongolia and Vietnam following".

It is interesting, and incongruous, that a recent survey of 'education, worldwide', put Vietnam above UK.

It starts to make sense that Cameron thinks that the UK ought to have a lower standard of human rights than other European countries.

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marazul 5 days ago

This is a very crazy list and i do not believe any of it. Cuba lower in quality of life than Honduras and Mexico, the most violent countries in Latin America? Really? Saudi Arabia and Oman higher than UK? USA higher than Iceland and Netherlands? Really? Give me a break!

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Bilbo Baggins. 5 days ago

Its hardly surprising we've become a mirror image of the 3rd world thanks to multiculturalism and unhindered mass immigration we are over populated have sweat shop wages and no job security and were vastly in debt due to corruption political or otherwise and our standard of living is going down and poverty is a growing spectre we all face exactly like the 3rd world.

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Baby Love 5 days ago

Not surprising, is it, when the philosophy of the government is to reduce government involvement and vilify people who don't become wealthy.Expect Britain to be in the bottom ten or twenty once the Tories have done demolishing human right and reducing us from subjects to consumerss.

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Derek Colman 5 days ago

Another meaningless piece of junk. It is subjective because the authors decided which elements of life are desirable and how much weighting each should get.

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Kostiksyd 5 days ago

Not only is it subjective, but the results also look completely out of touch with reality. Just look at the distribution between different continents. Most of Africa is grey while many European countries are not. They can't tell me that the quality of life in Somalia, Nigeria and South Africa is better than it is in Italy or even Poland. Seriously... The Indy editors should stop regurgitating this kind of PR-generated nonsense and try to get a grip on reality.

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Kostiksyd 5 days ago

...my bad - I meant to say DRC, not Nigeria... The other examples stand.

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Magician 5 days ago

We are dropping like a stone on quality of life because of mass immigration. Just look at what is happening to our schools, hospitals and job market. On top of that the mass immigration of muslims is threatening our security and important part of quality of life. When Dave lets the 5,000 criminals and scum in from Calais and all the so called migrants from Africa we will have a tsunami of crime and terrorism to contend with.

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andrew james 5 days ago

Or rather the country's quality of life is dropping like a stone because the whole political system is under the control of a bunch of money grabbing toffs. This 'immigration' thing is just their scapegoat to distract attention away from them. And you kippers have swallowed it hook, line an sinker. Their playing you lot for fools.

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lucyhilt 5 days ago

Their,when it should be they're, in a sentence informing others who don't share the writer's views that they are fools. The irony!

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andrew james 5 days ago

And some confuse pedantry with intelligence. I could't give a c*** about a bunch of archaic rules. Its trivial. Do you actually have an opinion about the actual discussion or not?

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chiefranter 6 days ago

We clearly aren't in the top ten, maybe we make it into the top 25. However, Saudi and Oman in the top ten? I assume they don't ask the migrant workers and slaves there what they think. Then the USA the same as Canada? Some mixed up data there, Canada is way ahead of the USA for ordinary people but maybe this is a quality of life index for millionaires.

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Cleeboy 6 days ago

Has the Indy told those 4000+ guys hanging around the ferry terminal in Calais?

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Heisenberg97 6 days ago

What complet BS! I spent a year in Saudi and it was hell on earth. And Canada rating the same as the USA? Hahahahaha!

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kiwigal 6 days ago

I don't believe any sane person would want to immigrate to Saudi Arabia.

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andrew james 5 days ago

You may change your mind when you see the sort of wages you can earn out there. Per capita they are a much richer country than us.

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Mac Foon 5 days ago

Until they catch you snogging that beautiful girl from the office department

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Dun Serving 6 days ago

Just shows how rubbish these sort of things are then.

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getstarted 6 days ago

quality of life should perhaps be measured by people wanting to live in a certain country. More people try to immigrate to the UK than to Saudia Arabia or Turkmenistan. That says much more about the quality of life.

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andrew james 5 days ago

Saudi Arabia? You mean the country where a THIRD of the population are immigrants despite some of the harshest anti-immigration laws around?! You kippers are nuts. Your whole world starts and ends with whatever c*** comes out of Mein Weaselness Farage's mouth!

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bunthorne 5 days ago

They are non-nationalised immigrants - code for migrant workers. Inform yourself about the difference. Only Muslims can apply for citizenship.

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andrew james 5 days ago

Sure. They have all sorts of rules in place which states that these workers can only come in if they are sponsored, have a firm job offer and must leave after completing the work. But the reality is, when literally one in three of the population falls under this category its impossible to fully enforce or crack down on the black market that has formed. So the reality of the situation is, whether their classed a 'non-nationalised immigrants' or not makes no difference at all.

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Jools 5 days ago

How about asking how many Brits would emigrate if they could? I would, I'd be off to NZ tomorrow if I had the money (too old otherwise, don't get enough points just like Oz)!

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