How to measure quality of life when choosing where to settle

"Where is life better?" is an easy question to answer on instinct but a hard one to compare fairly. A quality-of-life index attempts to quantify it.

Commonly used dimensions

• Real income & cost of living (purchasing power).
• Environment, climate, urban infrastructure.
• Social stability, public services, work–life balance.

Each dimension is normalised and then combined on a 0–100 scale, across the same set of countries as the other indices — so you can set it alongside passport strength or tax freedom. See the Quality of Life Index to find out which countries lead.