From Australia to Mexico, 34 Countries Ranked on Quality of Life

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From Australia to Mexico, 34 Countries Ranked on Quality of Life

A snapshot of 34 countries in one interactive map.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), makers of the Better Life Index (not to be confused with the World Happiness Report) have put together an interactive chart showing how 34 countries fare against each other across 11 categories.

The categories, deemed essential by the OECD for measuring quality of life, are housing, income, jobs, the quality of the country's community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance.

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You can rank the countries using all categories, or you can single out the best countries by any one category. Clicking on any single one of them will bring you to a more comprehensive breakdown as to why each country scored what they did across all categories.

Unsurprisingly, Scandinavian countries rank highly on the chart. Australians, however, have beaten pretty every country for providing the best balance across all categories, save for work-life balance and income.

The US hasn't moved away from its 7th place ranking the previous year, but it did fall from 6th place in 2013. The main factors holding the US back aren't terribly surprising. Civic engagement is low (our debates are one window into this sad state of affairs), and the OECD points to the voting power between the rich and the poor as one of the causes: the top 20 percent of income earners were 77 percent likely to vote, while the bottom 20 percent were 54 percent likely to vote. Ostensibly, this means the interests of lower income earners are less represented in government policies.

On the other end, lack of income and work-life imbalances are hobbling Turkey and Mexico. Turkish citizens work extremely long hours, over 100 hours more a year than the average among OECD countries, and make considerably less than the OECD average. They're also working more hours for considerably less money as well: the per capita incomes of both countries sit well below the average, and the OECD says the countries' high rates of child poverty are a result of this.

Of course, take this all with a grain of salt: it's a snapshot. It's also a very limited scope, having picked out 34 member countries with few in between to separate the two clear outliers. There are also far more complicated reasons why a country's worth living in despite disconcerting numbers in one category or another, and the OECD doesn't fully address more complicated factors that might affect a country's well-being, like the country's immigration policies, outstanding economic opportunities, and dedication to human rights causes. And these things, among many more are probably much more appropriate for longer discussions, rather than rankings.