Canada is 9th-best place to be born: report
Posted January 3, 2013 9:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Canada is the ninth-best place to be born in 2013 due to our wealth, low crime rate and health of our family life, according to The Economist.
“Boring is best,” the magazine said, pointing to the political stability of Canada and other high-ranking countries.
Switzerland topped the list put out by magazine, followed by Australia and Norway. The United States was tied for 16th place. Nigeria is at the bottom of the list of 80 countries.
Click here to see the full list
The list was compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of the magazine. The EIU looked at how happy people said they were and also looked at their own economic forecasts to 2030, which is roughly when children born in 2013 will reach adulthood.
America scored so low because babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, the magazine said.
The Economist first put out a list in 1988. That ranking looked at just 50 countries and was more “light-headed,” the magazine said. The United States topped that 25-year-old list and Canada came in fifth.
The 11 factors studied for 2013 are:
- material wellbeing as measured by GDP per head
- life expectancy at birth
- the quality of family life, based primarily on divorce rates
- the state of political freedoms
- job security (measured by the unemployment rate)
- climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 C; and the number of months in the year with less than 30 millimetres rainfall)
- personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism)
- quality of community life (based on membership in social organizations)
- governance (measured by ratings for corruption)
- gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women)
