The World Economic Forum has released a new set of national rankings, and since this one isn’t charting obesity, you can be sure America scored poorly. No surprise to anyone paying attention, Scandinavia swept the top spots. This time, the topic is females.
Ranked first at 85% is Iceland, followed by Norway (84%), Finland (82.6%), and Sweden (80.2%). The kiwis of New Zealand round out the top five at 78.1%.
Factors being measured include: ratios for the female workforce, their income compared to men, legislative representation, managerial presence, female levels of literacy and education, and female life expectancy.
The area most universally lacking for women was in political representation.
The US ranked 19th, just behind Latvia, and barely edging out Canada. Take that Canucks! We finally beat you at something non-sports related. How does it feel to lose to a second-rate nation?
Do they measure happiness based on the suicide/homicide rate?
ReplyDeleteI assume it's factored into life expectancy, but I didn't see anything expressly noting that. I did link to the actual study, if you care to check, but after my cursory reading of it, I would say it was not directly part of the calculation. Could be wrong, but I am pretty sure it was not.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna guess you didn't read all 334 pages.
ReplyDeleteIt's ok. Neither did I.
Just a thought:
Sweden largely homogenous 8 million people.
USA largely heterogenous 310 million.
America can't use Sweden's model. Two different mindsets.
Hard to compare just on that front alone. It's a LOT easier to control a smaller, similar sample.
America will always do worse than most because of this. Just putting it out there for arguments sake.
How is electing women a function of how large the US is?
ReplyDeleteThe countries that did well (particularly some of the obscure ones) did so because they had female leadership. Most of the first worlds nations were neck and neck when it came to education, health, and even economics.
Hard to compare just on that front alone. It's a LOT easier to control a smaller, similar sample.
Disturbing... I never thought of successful government as controlling. I wouldn't even credit the governments, because it's the people who selected more women in these countries that did particularly well. I don't think the government can really influence people's decision to choose their leaders (just that Republicans in power always influence people to vote Democrat, and vice versa).
It was just a general comment; wasn't pointing to anything in particular.
ReplyDeleteI love how you just pick something out of your ass to zero in on. In this case, women. Out of all that info. presented (yeah, I skimmed through it). Thanks for the link.
*Face palm nonetheless*
Bret, you're the socialist. Not me. Make up your mind. Socialism entails some form of bureaucratic control.
Sweden exerts CONTROL to reach its goals. It can because its population tends to accept what it gets in return. It can't work in the U.S. - at least that's what I think. You guys argue incessantly.
For example, you'd be kicked out of Sweden.
*Breaks out in vaudeville dance*
And why are socialists so damn angry? I live around them and they're always so bitter. Always bitchin' about how we need to stop this and do that because people are "greedy and stupid."
This coming from a guy who generally hates being around people.
ReplyDeleteBy the way.
Who said I hate being around people?
ReplyDeleteNo. Me.
ReplyDeletelove how you just pick something out of your ass to zero in on.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising, as most of his ideas come from there.
I love how you just pick something out of your ass to zero in on. In this case, women. Out of all that info. presented (yeah, I skimmed through it).
ReplyDeleteI don't understand this comment. I looked at the nation rankings and I noticed the countries who were ranked in the top 20 were generally all doing quite well in women's health and education, and were in the top nations for women's economic freedom, as well. It was largely the nations who had female leaders (which was the political portion) that pulled ahead.
That was literally the deciding factor for most of the nations at the top. As you go towards the middle and certainly the bottom of the list, this does not tend to be the case, but for the top nations it was largely female legislative and executive representation that decided it.
Example: there are 17 female Senators in the US. An accurate representation would be 50 (or technically 51, since there are more women in the US). We have also never had a female president, which was a factor.