Does New Zealand have a good quality of life?
The short answer to whether or not New Zealand have a good quality of life? Absolutely!
Time and again, New Zealand performs well in quality of life reports. Even during times of hardship, like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Let’s look at four recent indexes and reports that measure the quality of life to see how New Zealand performed compared to other countries around the world:
1. Better Life Index – OECD
The OECD Better Life Index measures the well-being of societies by looking at 11 topics. These topics reflect what the OECD identified as essential to well-being in terms of material living conditions and quality of life.
The 38 countries that form part of the Index are all OECD members and include the world’s most developed economies and several emerging economies, plus Brazil, Russia and South Africa.
What is the OECD?
The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and it’s an international organization that works to build better policies for better lives. The OECD’s goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity, and well-being.
Here’s how New Zealand performed:
New Zealand performs well in many dimensions of well-being relative to other countries in the Better Life Index. New Zealand outperforms the OECD average in income, jobs, education, health, environmental quality, social connections, civic engagement and life satisfaction.
- Disposable income: The average New Zealand household’s net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD39,024 a year, which is more than the OECD average of USD30,490 a year.
- Employment: About 77% of people aged 15 to 64 in New Zealand have a paid job, which is above the OECD employment average of 66%.
- Education: The average New Zealand student scored 503 in reading literacy, maths and science in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This score is higher than the OECD average of 488.
- Health: At birth, New Zealanders have a life expectancy of around 82 years, which is one year higher than the OECD average of 81 years.
- Social Connections: There is a strong sense of community in New Zealand, and 95% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in time of need.
- Life satisfaction: When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, New Zealanders gave it a 7.3 grade on average, which is higher than the OECD average of 6.7.
2. The Global Liveability Report 2021 – The Economist Intelligence Unit
The Global Liveability Report ranks 140 global cities for their urban quality of life based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure assessments. In 2021, the Report measured how COVID-19 affected liveability worldwide.
Who is the Economist Intelligence Unit?
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper. The EIU has a global team of economists, industry specialists, policy analysts and consultants.
Here’s how New Zealand’s cities performed:
The 10 most liveable cities in the world in 2021 were as follows:
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Osaka, Japan
- Adelaide, Australia
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Tokyo, Japan
- Perth, Australia
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Melbourne, Australia
- Brisbane, Australia
As you can see, Auckland is the world’s most liveable city! The city owes this ranking to its ability to contain the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic faster and thus lift restrictions earlier, unlike other cities around the world.
Wellington moved from 15th place in the 2020 Report to 4th place in the 2021 report, also due to its relative freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. Quality of Life Index 2022 – Numbeo
Numbeo’s Quality of Life Index is an estimation of the overall quality of life. It considers purchasing power, pollution, house price to income ratio, cost of living, safety, healthcare, traffic commute time, and climate.
Who is Numbeo?
Numbeo is the world’s largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.
Here’s how New Zealand performed:
New Zealand is in 9th place on the latest Quality of Life Index from Numbeo. The rest of the top 10 are Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Australia, Iceland, Germany, Austria, and Norway.
When looking at the indices, New Zealand ranked at number 19 for purchasing power, which means your money will go further in New Zealand than in many other countries. New Zealand also came in the top 20 for healthcare.
4. Quality of Life Ranking – US News
The Quality of Life Ranking from the US News measures the quality of life in 78 countries worldwide. The Ranking considers a variety of factors, ranging from the state of the job market to how family-friendly a country is.
Who is US News?
US News & World Report is a digital media company dedicated to helping consumers, business leaders and policy officials make important decisions. They use world-class data and technology to publish independent reporting, rankings, journalism and advice.
Here’s how New Zealand performed:
According to the Quality of Life Ranking from the US news, New Zealand has the tenth-highest quality of life globally. The other countries in the top 10 are Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany.
New Zealand scored particularly well for:
- Being family-friendly
- Being economically stable
- Its well-developed public education and health systems
- Being politically stable
- Being a safe country to live in
Why is New Zealand’s quality of life important?
Your quality of life matters because it directly affects your physical and mental well-being.
Someone who lives in a clean, safe and thriving country with quality healthcare, access to education and jobs, a stable economy, and plenty of opportunities will be much happier than a person living in a country that misses the mark on some or all of these indicators.
Thus, you want to ensure that when you move to another country it offers an enviable quality of life.
You don’t want to be worse off than where you are – you want to maintain or improve your and your family’s quality of life.
As we saw, New Zealand’s quality of life is among the best in the world. When you decide to call this beautiful country your home, your overall well-being will benefit tremendously!
