I imagine the residents of France may be thinking something different as this week’s round of strikes and protests gets underway.

News reports say the strikes are set to widen to include a range of sectors, including road transport, energy, posts, telecommunications and public service. The industrial action has brought fears of fuel shortages as workers at oil refineries walk out, and rail chaos as train staff join in, threatening to bring the country to a standstill.

The protest has been spurred by moves to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, and the full retirement age from 65 to 67 years – a change that rather undercuts one of the advantages of French life highlighted by the uSwitch.com survey. The government claims it is needed to prevent the country’s pension deficit from spiralling out of control and threatening the system as a whole.

In total, Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has announced plans to cut spending by €45bn over the next three years in a bid to meet its budget deficit target.

Meanwhile Spain, which came second in the uSwitch.com quality of life rankings, has seen unemployment more than double (to about 20%) since 2007. In a bid to curb its budget deficit, the government is raising the top level of income tax and introducing a range of austerity measures for 2011 designed to cut spending by 8%.

Of course, the UK faces its own economic difficulties – as, for that matter, does the United States. But if you’re aiming to escape your home country’s problems and find a better quality of life by moving abroad, it’s important to remember the grass is not always greener on the other side.

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The report polled members of the banking, insurance, asset management, hedge fund and private equity communities on six factors: predictability, overall tax burden, attitude of tax authorities, network of tax treaties, complexity and cost of compliance.

Every respondent gave the UK a poor rating on predictability. It is the area where the UK fared worst compared to other countries, but which the report says is the most important factor in judging competitiveness.

The authors said surprise changes such as the introduction of the bank payroll tax and bank levy, and the increase to 50% in the top rate of income tax were creating uncertainty and changing the financial services industry’s perception of the UK. In addition, the new rates and measures meant “the UK is now seen as a high tax jurisdiction not dissimilar to continental countries.”

However, despite fears that changes to the UK’s regime would lead to an exodus of financial institutions and people to more favourable tax jurisdictions, such as Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong, that has not materialised in practice, at least thus far. Instead, for the time being London remains a key financial hub, attracting international investment, as well as expatriate and domestic workers.

Holding on to its position in the world as an attractive place to live and do business is the UK’s challenge going forwards. Relying on its weather as a source of appeal certainly won’t do the job!

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Or, at least, so says a new study by consumer comparison service uSwitch.com[1].

Its research examined 16 quality of life factors – such as net income, food and fuel costs, life expectancy and working conditions – across 10 European countries to see how they stacked up.

France emerged with the best overall score, followed by Spain. The UK came ninth, with Ireland propping up the bottom of the table.

The reason for the UK’s poor score, said uSwitch, included its high living costs, below average government spending on health and education, shortage of holiday entitlements, high retirement age and lack of sunshine.

France, by contrast, was found to have the lowest retirement age, the longest life expectancy and the highest healthcare spend.

Meanwhile, Spain benefited from low living costs (especially for alcohol and cigarettes!), the highest number of holidays (at 43 days per year) and most sunshine hours.

The firm went on to note that three in ten people in the UK believe now is a good time to emigrate[2]. Given the low quality of life it seems they can expect to enjoy, is it any wonder?

The Full Picture

Yet before everyone starts packing their bags for France and Spain, it is important to remember that while such surveys make for attention-grabbing headlines, they don’t show the full picture.

For instance, the uSwitch report gives no consideration to the countries’ current or expected economic growth rates. Or what about the 20% unemployment rate afflicting Spain?

It gives no weighting either to the burdensome red tape that is so often cited as a feature of life in France and Italy.

The percentage of GDP spent on health is a blunt tool too by which to measure and compare the efficacy of countries’ systems. The United States, for one, spends a considerably higher percentage of its GDP on health, yet millions of its citizens remain without adequate, or indeed any, health cover.

The uSwitch survey also takes it as given that the greater the hours of sunshine the better. Yet the impressive sunshine quota seen in southern Europe – as well as places such as California and parts of Australia – bring with it high summer temperatures that frequently provoke raging forest fires, water shortages, pest infestations and crop failures.

In addition, the summer heat may force residents, especially the elderly, to spend weeks of the year trapped indoors, and can even lead to spiking death rates (as seen in Europe during the 2003 heatwave).

In short, these types of reports and surveys – a plethora of which are produced around the world each year – can give some helpful indication of the life you can expect to find when moving abroad. But to get a real picture, don’t forget to consider all the elements, the pros and the cons, and what they mean specifically to you.

[2] uSwitch.com Consumer Opinion Panel, May 2010, amongst a sample of 3,640 adults.

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Recent reports say Howard, who is swapping London for Geneva, is among a number of financial luminaries to have left the UK. And there are fears many more will follow, driven by concerns about rising tax rates, a less attractive business environment, and quality of life issues.

Certainly Geneva has its attractions. Low tax is an obvious one, especially for those wealthy City types. For example, alternative investment managers (i.e. those at hedge and private equity funds) can obtain a special tax status that enables them to discount chunks of their taxable income. Indeed, Switzerland as a whole offers many tax advantages.

Then there are the lifestyle benefits – the proximity of world-class ski resorts, sailing on the country’s many lakes, the beautiful scenery, its excellent environmental record, high quality health and education systems, etc, etc.

And that is backed up by Mercer’s 2010 Quality of Living survey, which put Geneva third in its global rankings, one place behind Zurich[1].

The flipside is that Geneva also ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the world, coming in fifth in Mercer’s recently released Cost of Living survey[2].

With a reported fortune of £875 million that won’t faze Alan Howard. Still, it might give the rest of us pause for thought.

[2] Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living survey 2010 – City rankings, 29 June 2010, http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingpr#City_rankings

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Not in my balmy corner of Spain, I hasten to add. In Norway.

I was conducting a phone interview with a banking executive in Oslo this morning, and this is the weather report she gave me.

By contrast, I was sitting with my office balcony door open, with the sunshine pouring through. It must have been about 20 degrees here today, and that’s much cooler than it has been the rest of the month. Last weekend I saw people still swimming in the sea (although I must confess it’s a bit chilly for me now).

Norway consistently rates well in various quality of life measures such as its work/life balance, income levels and environmental performance. And for years it has dominated top spot in the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI) table.

Evidently the country has a lot going for it. Except its geography. Spain’s sunshine seems much more appealing.

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