As part of its annual Global Passport Index, Global Citizen Solutions used metrics such as cost of living, environmental sustainability, infrastructure and personal and political freedoms to determine which nations offer the greatest “quality of life”. According to the experts, the goal for this study was to “assess how good life is in the country as a permanent or primary place of residence for expats, retirees, and anyone seeking desirable living conditions abroad”
Among a number of research areas, Global Citizen Solutions looked into the overall happiness of certain populations, how well connected they were, how much freedom citizens have and the availability of healthcare and education.
Based on their findings, Sweden was ranked as the best nation globally for “quality of life”, scoring highly for sustainable development, the cost of living and overall happiness of residents.
The nation scored an impressive 87.2 on the scale.
Scandinavian and Nordic nations fared well overall, with Finland and Denmark scooping the second and third positions for “quality of life”.
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Overall, residents of this nation were deemed to be happy.
Completing the top five nations is Germany, with a score of 83.2.
The rest of the top 10 was made up of countries on the European continent, with the exception of Pacific country New Zealand which came in seventh place.
The Netherlands took sixth place, with a score of 83.1, while New Zealand scored 82.6.
The UK made it into the top 10, coming in eighth place with a score of 82.1.
Spain and Austria made uptake rest of the top 10, scoring 81.5 and 81.2 respectively.
Ireland was just out of the top 10, coming in 11th place with a score of 80.9.
This was followed by Portugal, France, Norway and Andorra in 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th places respectively.
Australia, Slovenia, San Marino, Luxembourg and Iceland made up the Quality of Life Index top 20.
