UNIAN
South Americans value education most of all, while the United States and Canada differ on whether life satisfaction or health are their top concerns, a new study from the OECD has shown.
The OECD Better Life Initiative has been collecting information on a continuous basis since 2011 on what people around the world value most, and to date has received over 60,000 responses from over 180 countries.
The result, called the Better Life Index, is intended to allow viewers to compare well-being across countries, based on the 11 topics the OECD identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life, Ukrainian news magazine Novoe Vremya reported on Thursday, with reference to Independent.
The topics were: safety, housing, jobs, income, work-life balance, life satisfaction, health, education, governance, community and environment.
In Europe, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Poland chose life satisfaction as their top priority, and health was valued most in Russia, Norway, Iceland, France and Austria.
Cyprus was the only country in Europe where people selected a work-life balance as their highest priority, while the people of Ukraine and Albania valued income the most.
In north America there was a clear difference seen between the values of the United States, Canada and Mexico, whose top priorities were life satisfaction, health and environment respectively.
Meanwhile almost all of south America – including Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina - is most preoccupied with issues regarding education, asides from Peru (life satisfaction), Venezuela (safety) and Guyana (housing).