Country Size Vs the Good Life! Fight!
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0108/1224328563655.html
A recent study has listed the best countries to born in as of right now.
1 Switzerland
2 Australia
3 Norway
4 Sweden
5 Denmark
6 Singapore
7 New Zealand
8 Netherlands
9 Canada
10 Hong Kong
The survey differs in its attempts to measure what life will be like for a child born this year who enters adult life in 2030.
Laza Kekic, the regional director of the EIU and one of the authors of the survey, said the results showed smaller countries are better to live in than big countries.
“There seems to be a positive small country effect,” he said. “Many of the large countries fall down on things like health, life expectancy, while quality of family and community life are not great,” he said citing the examples of the US and the UK, which have high divorce rates.
This jives with what I've long suspected in that the US would be doing better with many of our problems if our population were smaller. After all, the only two countries were with more people are China and India. And if you were to give people a choice of those three as to where they'd like to get an education or healthcare...well, I think my point is made.
While population isn't, of course, a be all end all it can't be discounted as an important factor. I think the real question here, however, is what can countries with high populations learn from smaller countries.
A recent study has listed the best countries to born in as of right now.
1 Switzerland
2 Australia
3 Norway
4 Sweden
5 Denmark
6 Singapore
7 New Zealand
8 Netherlands
9 Canada
10 Hong Kong
The survey differs in its attempts to measure what life will be like for a child born this year who enters adult life in 2030.
Laza Kekic, the regional director of the EIU and one of the authors of the survey, said the results showed smaller countries are better to live in than big countries.
“There seems to be a positive small country effect,” he said. “Many of the large countries fall down on things like health, life expectancy, while quality of family and community life are not great,” he said citing the examples of the US and the UK, which have high divorce rates.
This jives with what I've long suspected in that the US would be doing better with many of our problems if our population were smaller. After all, the only two countries were with more people are China and India. And if you were to give people a choice of those three as to where they'd like to get an education or healthcare...well, I think my point is made.
While population isn't, of course, a be all end all it can't be discounted as an important factor. I think the real question here, however, is what can countries with high populations learn from smaller countries.