Rating Countries

I had a conversation with a young person. She informed me that saying "The United States of America is the best country in the world" without data made her want to argue.

It was a statement of "show me the data".

She has no issues accepting that the United States is in the top quartile, but to say it is the best....

I asked her what countries she thought were superior to the US, and she named three. I will talk about those countries in a later post.

Persuasive argument
Rule #1: Use metrics that matter to the target. Presenting metrics that matter to you will be seen as boorish and will NOT help you sell your proposition or product.
Rule #2: Don't tilt the table too much. If your product is inferior for that customer, don't poison future sales by forcing the issue
Rule #3: Front-load the vivid and graphic images/metrics that favor your product.

Too many metrics
Too many essays that rate countries become super-tankers full of bombast. They try to impress by incorporating hundreds of metrics in sorting through the countries.

It isn't necessary or even desirable to include every metric you can think of in these exercises. Metrics "cluster". Rather than have twenty-five metrics that speak to economic conditions, pick three that span the universe of how people interact with the economy. Rather than a hundred metrics that speak to human-rights, pick five that capture 95% of the issues,

The risk in choosing a hundred human-rights issues is that you might inadvertently over-weight human rights issues over, say, your ability to make a living. Unless you are a trans-gendered, married "man" and are looking for a doctor to perform a vasectomy, then do you really care about the fringe of transgender "equality" issues?

The purpose of this essay is to take a first swing at a rational package of metrics that will be compelling to a twenty-something, college graduate woman.

The fixed cost of moving
An important consideration is the fixed cost of moving and how "bad" your current country actually is.

Some countries are less desirable places to live than others. The areas circled in red are countries that most people agree fall on the left side of the normal distribution circled in red.

The material impact on lives is huge if you currently live in a -3 Standard Deviation country and you move up 10% points to a -1.4 Standard Deviation country. That would be like moving from Haiti-to-Chile or Myanmar-to-Sri Lanka. HUGE difference.

The effect of moving up 10%ile points if you are in the crowded middle is far less marked. In fact, you might have a hard time getting agreement, is "Ireland "better" than Portugal?" Some people adore the sun and will insist Portugal is superior. Others like cozy pubs and will insist Ireland is better.

The costs of moving between Portugal and Ireland is likely to not be recouped in improved quality of life. Why bother moving if your education is not respected, you need to learn another language and you lose family and professional connections if the gains are very incremental?

Unfortunately, the left-side of the curve argument also applies to the right side of the curve. If you live in a 88th percentile country then you will gain significant advantage if you move to a 98th percentile country.


What metrics for twenty-somethings?
Racial/Gender equality
-Pay differences between People-of-Color and non-POC, women and men
-Life expectancy difference between People-of-Color and non-POC
-Substance abuse rates of POC

Immigration
-Ease of legal immigration
-Acceptance of out-of-country credentials
-General attitude toward "foreigners"

Economics
-Unemployment in 20-to-35 age cohort
-Upward mobility for non-natives
-Ease of starting a business
-Social safety-net
-Cost of living
-Tax rate (suggested in Comments by Gromit)

Health
-Infant and maternal death-rate
-Access to healthcare
-General sanitation, sewage, insects, venomous creatures

Other
-Typical weeks of vacation per year
-Maternity leave policies

What do you guys think? You are my source of "the wisdom of the cloud". What am I missing? What should I leave out?