The Index

[bcholmes]

A lot of Canadians of my acquaintance liked to refer to the UN report that said that Canada had the highest quality of life of all first world nations. We were so rated from 1996 to 2000. Then Norway took our spot and we slid to number three.

(I had a co-worker who was Norwegian. The whole 2001 Index thing coincides with his move to Canada. Of course, I blamed him).

The most recent index has Canada slipping to number 10. And this part is important: Canada is behind the US, now. And that's the part that'll be a real blow to our collective ego.

The Star's article says that the Index is based on these factors:

• life expectancy;
• education;
• health;
• income;
• poverty; and
• the environment.

There's also something about status of women, 'cause the article mentions the low percentage of women in our parliament as one of the factors that pulled us down.

Comments

the UN index

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i haven't read it yet (and i admit, i didn't read the previous ones either), but personally i am quite a bit more content living in canada than in the US, and that hasn't decreased, but increased since the US has made grave inroads on its civil liberties. i guess the report hasn't had time to take that into account, but i wonder whether it will do so at all. i wasn't really interested before because i don't expect that any aggregate report would take into account all the things that matter to me personally.

but frankly, i am now curious as to what statistical methods are employed to have canada come in behind the US in education, poverty, and the environment. life expectancy has got to be extremely close, and health -- gosh, i rather wait for a hip replacement surgery than not have any health coverage. as regards status of women -- having a low percentage of women in parliament doesn't say a whole lot about the treatment of women in general. i feel less sexism (and less racism too, where's the benchmark for that?) in canada than in the US. and i see, if we were to talk just top level politics, also nothing in the way of a female prime minister (heck, we had one years ago, and we have another candidate now, though man, i dislike her with a passion), contrary to the US where i think it's problematic to even run with a woman as vice presidential candidate. i can't put my finger quite on it, but the attitudes do seem different to me.

how many fewer women (%) are there in canadian parliament? does the percentage carry through all levels of government? any studies on this?

*thinking* ... or has the income differential become so great that it outperforms all the other categories?