Ireland is ranked as the 15th best country in the world for quality of life

The annual Best Countries rankings has been published for 2019, and Ireland fared pretty well amongst the 80 countries that were analyzed.

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For the Best Country Overall listing, Ireland landed in a very healthy 21st place, right in between 20th place Spain and 22nd place South Korea. This was the second year that Ireland came in 21st place. Switzerland was named the Best Country Overall for 2019.

Of the subrankings that U.S. News calculates, Ireland’s highest ranking was 13th place for both ‘Open for Business’ and ‘Adventure’ subcategories, and its lowest was 48th place for the ‘Power’ ranking.

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All of Ireland's official 2019 rankings follow:

  • #13 for Open for Business
  • #13 for Adventure
  • #15 for Quality of Life
  • #15 for Citizenship
  • #16 for Heritage
  • #21 for Entrepreneurship
  • #25 for Cultural Influence
  • #42 for Movers
  • #48 for Power

Ireland scored a healthy 7.3 out of a potential 10 in the Open for Business ranking, and a 5.3 in the Adventure ranking. In the Power subcategory, Ireland only scored a .6.

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For the Quality of Life rankings, Ireland lands in 15th place for 2019. U.S. News writes, “The 2019 Best Countries rankings, formed in partnership with BAV Group, a unit of global marketing communications company VMLY&R, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, are based on a study that surveyed more than 20,000 global citizens from four regions to assess perceptions of 80 countries on 75 different metrics.

“Beyond the essential ideas of broad access to food and housing, to quality education and health care, to employment that will sustain us, quality of life may also include intangibles such as job security, political stability, individual freedom, and environmental quality.”

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Ireland scored a 6.3 out of a potential 10 in the Quality of Life analysis, landing the country in 15th place. The country with the highest quality of life was Canada, which scored a perfect 10, and with the lowest quality of life was Iraq with a 0.0 score.

The breakdown of Ireland’s 6.3 Quality of Life score followed as such:

  • family friendly 9.4
  • safe 7.6
  • well-developed public education system 7.3
  • politically stable 6.3
  • well-developed public health system 6.2
  • economically stable 5.1
  • income equality 3.8
  • good job market 3.0
  • affordable .4