Declining quality of life in Germany

The OECD has published a new study on the quality of life in the Member States, with a scary result for Germany: In terms of factors such as income, education or health, Germany has lost the connection to the world's topn

According to the OECD study, Nordic countries are far ahead in terms of higher quality of life. Thus, the places one to three occupied by Norway, followed by Sweden and Finland. Japan and New Zealand also performed very well during the investigation. Throughout the survey, worse than Germany, only Denmark, the USA, Belgium and Portugal score worse than Germany, with Denmark's quality of life being correspondingly negatively affected, in particular due to the high level of environmental pollution.

Progress index for measuring the quality of life
To assess the quality of life in the various economies, the OECD's scientists have developed a so-called index of progress, which aims to capture wealth as far as possible in its entirety. In addition to economic development, value also takes into account life expectancy, education levels and the environmental impact of private individuals and companies in the respective country.

Germany worldwide 14th place
In terms of per capita income, according to the OECD, Germany ranks 14th among the economies surveyed, which is below average. The top positions are occupied by Norway, the USA and Sweden. Tailings in terms of per capita income are Spain, New Zealand and last place Portugal. In the study of life expectancy, the scientists came to the conclusion that Germany is ranked 13th here too mediocre at most. An average life expectancy of 80 years here in Germany is not enough to get under better positions. On the other hand, life expectancy in the first-placed Japan is on average higher than 82 years. Second and third places are followed by Switzerland and Italy.

Bad evaluation of the German education system
Of concern is the evaluation of the German education system by the OECD. Since only 74 percent of young people in Germany complete vocational training or studies, Germany is on the penultimate place in the education system assessment. Only Switzerland achieves worse results. The top positions were taken by Finland, Denmark and New Zealand, where nearly 100 percent of people complete vocational training or studies. The only bright spot in terms of quality of life in Germany are environmental factors. Here Germany could achieve a respectable eighth place. The top position was achieved by Portugal, which has the least environmental impact, but this is at least partly due to the low level of development of the Portuguese economy.

The clearest positive development among OECD member countries has taken South Korea over the past decade, advancing from last to seventh place in the overall ranking as a result of a sharp rise in incomes and increased life expectancy. However, OECD researchers have also found that average quality of life has increased in all of the countries studied over the past decade. (fp, 11.11.2010)

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Picture credits: Wolfgang Pfensig