I have to admit I'm a sucker for lists and rankings, especially when they measure how my country's doing against the world.
Now Newsweek and its affiliate The Daily Beast have come up with the mother of all best-country lists, ranking 100 nations in terms of health, education, economy, politics and educations.
The bad news for Canada is we aren't No. 1, but we are in the top 10, ranking seventh overall. However, we don't finish on top of any of the sub-groupings either, such as best middle-sized nation. Australia won that one.
"In NEWSWEEK's first-ever Best Countries special issue, we set out to answer a question that is at once simple and incredibly complex—if you were born today, which country would provide you the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous, and upwardly mobile life? " writes Newsweek deputy editor Rana Foroohar, explaining how the rankings were arrived at.
Months of number-crunching and consultation yielded an important insight: "There is no one model for national success."
"The winners are quite a varied group, and have found myriad ways to create vibrant, healthy, and (dare we say) happy societies," writes Foroohar.
"That's a nugget of wisdom that leaders and policymakers would do well to keep in mind as they try to score better in years ahead."
The best way to dig into the rankings is through the interactive infographic that breaks out countries in terms of health, quality of life and economic dynamism.
Click on Canada and you discover we're second in terms of education, seventh in health, 10th in quality of life and political environment and 11th in economic dynamism.
The top country overall is Finland, with the best-ranked education system but a mediocre health score (17th), while posting top-10 scores in the other categories.
Northern Europe also fares well in a new study on work-life balance by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Denmark tops the list among the 23 developed countries covered in the survey, while Canada is firmly mid-pack, ranked No. 14.
"The female employment rate in Canada is high at 76 per cent compared to the OECD average of 64%, and in two out of three two-parent families both parents work," the report says. " Seventy-one per cent of mothers are employed after their children begin school; this figure is higher than the OECD average of sixty-six per cent and suggests that mothers in Canada are able to successfully balance family and career."
Canadians also spend less time at work than the OECD average - a good thing as far as this survey's concerned, and are close to average when it comes to time spent on personal care and leisure.
The survey shows female employment is higher than average but Canada lags behind in terms of childcare for pre-school-age children.
83 comments