Italy

We’ve long suspected it, and now it appears to be true – the French, those lucky blighters, have the best quality of life in Europe.

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.