Newsweek ranks Estonia 32nd best country in world

Estonia ranks 32nd in the Newsweek list of the best countries in the world in terms of national well-being with Finland rated as the best of 100.

The magazine chose five categories of well-being - education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment - using data from international studies for the survey. Estonia scored 93.32 points out of a maximum 100 for education, 75.85 for health, 71.50 for quality of life, 51.27 for the economy, and 73.23 for political environment.

By Newsweek's rankings, the overall level of well-being is highest in Finland, followed by Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Luxembourg, Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan and Denmark.

Out of the 100 countries listed, Burkina Faso has the lowest level of well-being, preceded by Nigeria and Cameroon.
Lithuania placed 34th, Latvia 36th and Russia 51st. Ahead of Estonia was Slovakia in 31st and Hungary followed in 33rd. More than half of the world's countries were not included in the list.

The education scores were based on the results of international PISA tests and CIA Factbook literacy data. Health was evaluated by the World Health Organization's data of life expectancy, years of healthy life, and levels of sickness and injuries. Quality of life was judged by data on income levels, gender gap in earnings, poverty, standard of life, number of suicides, crime levels, state of the environment, and level of unemployment provided by the United Nations and its organizations, the World Bank, CIA Factbook, and other international organizations. In assessing economic development, international organizations' data on gross domestic product, utilization of resources, innovation, economic reforms and stock market were taken into consideration. Political environment was measured on the basis of Freedom House and other international organizations' data on political and civic freedoms.

Baltic News Service