14 DAY TRIAL // Given the fact that quality of life indexes are notoriously not objective, researchers have been trying to develop a mathematical formula for creating one for many years – and it would appear that they finally succeeded.
Creating a quality-of-life index is a very complex and difficult problem to solve. The question researchers need to answer is how do you quantify how well people live in a country?
To make matters even more interesting, how do you create such an index based on an objective, mathematical formula? Now, researchers from England and France appear to have developed the answer to this question.
Experts say that various means of assessing a nation's quality of life exist today, but they emphasize the fact that most of these techniques are questionable themselves, or feature “components” that are opened to debate.
In order to circumvent controversies, scientists Andrei Zinovyev, of the Institut Curie in Paris, and Alexander Gorban from the University of Leicester in the UK, developed a mathematical formula that takes into account several factors.
None of them is opened to interpretation, the team believes, which is why the new index may be the objective one the international scientific community has been waiting for.
It relies of centralizing and taking into account factors such as the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate and the incidence of tuberculosis.
According to Technology Review, official statistics on all of these aspects are available for 162 countries for the year 2005.
In this quality of life index, Luxembourg comes first, followed by the United States and Norway. The last positions are occupied by Zimbabwe, Kenya and Swaziland, respectively.
Things are probably different now, given the fact that the US has been severely affected by the global economic downturn. Other countries in Europe most likely occupy the top five at this point.
The new index also produces some interesting questions of its own. For example, some countries with higher GDP than others may be located way lower in the charts.
Researchers say that this happens because one or more of the indexes that are taken into account vary widely. Such is the case when comparing Equatorial Guinea with Saudi Arabia.
The former has a much higher GDP than the latter, but features unbelievable health statistics, with infant mortality through the roof. About 127 in 10,000 children die after birth, as opposed to 27 in Saudi Arabia.
Similarly, Russia is ranked 71st overall, in spite of the fact that its GDP is higher than that of many countries above it in the chart.