Tim Colebatch Tim Colebatch is The Age's economic editor.
March 15, 2013
For all our whingeing, Australia is still the second-best country in the world in terms of the potential it offers its people for human development, a benchmark United Nations study has found.
The UN's 2013 Human Development Report shows Australia ranks high even among the most developed countries on a wide range of social, economic and environmental indicators.
Norway was ranked the best place in the world to live, partly because climate was not one of the indicators surveyed. The US came third, followed by the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan.
The small African republic of Niger was ranked the worst place to live. African countries filled 19 of the bottom 20 places; the other was Afghanistan.
Australia did not lead the world on any indicator, but achieved its high ranking by a solid all-round performance, with no glaring weaknesses, other than gender equality, where we were ranked 17th of the 186 countries surveyed.
Even on subjective measures Australians as a whole turn out to be some of the most contented people in the world with their government services and society generally.
Even Norway outranked Australia only because its oil wealth gives it a much higher income. When all non-income indicators were combined, Australia and New Zealand were ranked equaly as the best societies in the world.
Among other things, the UN finds that:
- Australia has the second lowest rate of suicides, both male and female, among the top 20 countries on its index. Only Israel has lower rates. At the other extreme, Korean men are six times more likely to kill themselves than Australians, and Korean women three times more likely, partly due to their intensely competitive school system.
- Baby Australians can look forward to a longer life - 82 years, on average - than their fellow bubs anywhere else except Japan, Hong Kong and Switzerland.
- Australia's rate of capital investment, at 27 per cent of GDP, is the second highest in the top 20 countries, behind only Korea. Australia's investment: GDP ratio in 2010-11 was almost double that of the US.
- Australians are among the most satisfied people in the world with their freedom of choice, quality of education, satisfaction with their jobs, even satisfaction with government - and overall satisfaction with life.
