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How would you measure quality of life? This income data is hopefully based on hard facts and not some kind of perception of the world. The median income is oft

• ryanjshaw 12y ago
  > How would you measure quality of life? This income data is hopefully based on hard facts and not some kind of perception of the world. Life is all about perception. Everybody commenting here is describing their perception of these numbers. However, the data really is deceptive. You cannot draw any conclusions whatsoever from this data alone, unfortunately. What conclusions are being drawn that are valid are actually drawing upon extra information about the countries concerned. For example: > The median income is often closer to what most people actually earn than the mean for example It's not really important what "most people earn". Take South Africa, 3rd on the list in this chart. This is a country with a 25.2% unemployment rate and significant income inequality [1]. The median income listed is $6,600. If you're interested in technology - good luck programming Casio digital watches, because that's all you're going to be able to afford. Even when do you save up to afford things, you die sooner than the rest of the world so you don't even get to enjoy it for long [2]. What's important is what kind of quality of life you want, and whether or not the income you earn in your chosen profession can provide for that. Over and above that are cross-cutting concerns, for instance, do you really want to live in a country with a higher homicide rate than Colombia and significant corruption? [1] > I'm pretty sure the data people at Bloomberg had good reasons to chose these figures. Bloomberg is providing raw data; they provide tons of other data [2] but they expect you to read them all together in a manner that make sense to you. They do not impose an opinion about how to interpret the data. what I'm saying is it would be great if there were a way to factor all the data in together in a way that allows people to specify preferences (e.g. homicide rate < 10) to determine a personalised quality of life score. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-stressed-out-countries http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-str... [2] http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/longest-life-span-in-middle-east-and-africa-countries http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/longest-... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/ http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/
  • yaph 12y ago
    You're certainly right that looking at a single factor like median income doesn't say anything about whether I'd want to live and work in a country or not. There is more to it, but it is largely determined by my personal preference, which differs from those of other people. I think it is extremely hard to come up with a measurement for quality of life, but there are attempts to do it, e. g. the OECD Better Life Index http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ But then too many factors can be overwhelming and hard to visualize. While the flower like shapes in the OECD example look nice, I find it hard to draw any conclusions from them.