British life is best, if you like that sort of thing

Nigel Williams, 12 December 2013

According to the OECD Better Life Index, life in Britain is better than anywhere else in the developed world. There is more than a little exaggeration in that statement. The OECD has made its index flexible, so that anyone can weight it to suit what matters most to them. If what matters is putting the UK at the top of the list, then it is just possible in 2013 to find an ideal configuration.

Environment, Community and Civic Engagement

Behind the index are twenty four sets of results, summarised into 11 adjustable categories. As always, the results are subject to sample error and subjectivity. It is still worth a look at how the UK appears relative to its allies and competitors. We lead the world in water quality and consultation on rule-making. In the more general categories, that puts us second only to Sweden for the Environment and fifth in Civic Engagement. On a companion measure of voter turnout, Britain’s low polling from all but pensioners cannot compete with Australia’s compulsory suffrage. Safety scores well, since, according to the OECD, the assault rate in the UK is among the developed world’s lowest. A pleasant discovery is in the Community category, for the quality of support network. Consider the question: “If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them, or not?” Only Iceland and Ireland gave more positive answers than the UK.

Income and Jobs

For income and jobs, the UK is comfortably above average. High personal earnings and a healthy employment rate were tempered only by a poor score on job security. That measured the fraction of the dependent employed that had been in post for under six months. Only Luxembourg, Greece and the Czech and Slovak Republics fared worse on that measure. Health and Housing were middling. Self-reported health ranked the UK higher than did life-expectancy. Enjoying 1.8 rooms per person was close to the OECD average. Very few dwellings lacked basic facilities, but the UK was at the high end of a cluster round the average for the fraction of household income spent on accommodation. The entire spread was between 11 and 27 per cent and only Russia was below 16. Several countries were cheaper than than the UK average expenditure of 22 per cent.

Education and Work-Life Balance

Education needed a low weighting to keep the UK on top of the world. PISA 2012  scores for fifteen-year-olds are around average or better, but many countries keep people in school for longer and bring more to the standard of upper secondary education. For Work-Life Balance, 12 per cent of employees reported working 50 hours a week or more, contributing to a UK rank of 22nd. Denmark was top. For Life-Satisfaction, which for some judges might be enough of an indicator by itself, we gave ourselves 6.8 out of 10, between a Swiss 7.8 and a Hungarian 4.7.

Appreciating what we have

Any index is as likely to inform the reader about the values of the person or organisation putting it together as much as it speaks about the subjects it claims to report.  This flexible index gives an interesting picture of the values that could make someone appreciate living in Britain. There is a good prospect of well-paid employment, even if that job may be insecure or require long hours. For those that can afford it, the housing stock is generally good and assaults in 2010 were rarer here than overseas. We can drink the water and breathe the air. If times get hard, we have people we can rely on. It could be that the grass is greener on this side of the Channel.