Lifestyle Stats: compare key data on Belarus & Switzerland
Definitions
- Food and drink > Exports: Food comprises the commodities in SITC sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and SITC division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts, and oil kernels)."
- Food and drink > Exports > % of merchandise > Exports: Food comprises the commodities in SITC sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and SITC division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts, and oil kernels).
- Food and drink > Imports > % of merchandise imports: Food comprises the commodities in SITC sections 0 (food and live animals), 1 (beverages and tobacco), and 4 (animal and vegetable oils and fats) and SITC division 22 (oil seeds, oil nuts, and oil kernels)."
- Happiness level > Very happy: Proportion of people who answered the survey question: "Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?" by stating that they were "Very happy".
- Happiness net: This statistic is compiled from responses to the survey question: "Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?". The "Happiness (net)" statistic was obtained via the following formula: the percentage of people who rated themselves as either "quite happy" or "very happy" minus the percentage of people who rated themselves as either "not very happy" or "not at all happy".
- Life satisfaction: Most scores are based on responses to the following question: "All things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life-as-a-whole now? 1 dissatisfied to10 satisfied" (item code O-SLW/c/sq/n/10/a). Scores of ten nations are based on responses to a somewhat different question: "Suppose the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder the worst possible life. Where on this ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time?" The response was rated on a ladder scale ranging from 0 to 10 (item code O-BW/c/sq/l/11/c). We transformed the scores using the information of nations in which both this item and the above question on life-satisfaction had been used in about the same years.
- Life satisfaction inequality: This data is indicative of how much citizens differ in enjoyment of their life-as-a-whole.Life-satisfaction assessed by means of surveys in samples of the general population. Scores may be too low in some countries, due to under sampling of rural and illiterate population. In this ranking the focus is not on the level of happiness in the country, but on inequality in happiness among citizens.Inequality in happiness can be measured by the dispersion of responses to survey-questions. The degree of dispersion can be expressed statistically in the standard deviation and surveys items rated on a 10 step numerical scale are particularly usefull for that purpose. Most scores are based on responses to the following question: "All things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life-as-a-whole now? 1 dissatisfied to10 satisfied".
- Quality of life index: Quality of Life Index is an estimation of overall quality of life by using empirical formula (the formula is an our opinion and it's based on experiments). The actual formula might be changed. Currently, we put the highest weight to pollution - if the environment is polluted too much, the economy or safety cannot fulfill it. We put the second highest importance to safety, since it is more important to feel safe rather than wealthy, in our opinion. etc. The number 65 is added so that the numbers are in such range so it rarely goes under zero (65 is a range modifier).
SOURCES: World Bank staff estimates from the Comtrade database maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division.; World Development Indicators database; World Values Survey 2005; World Database of Happiness, Happiness in Nations, Rank Report 2004/1 Average happiness in 90 nations 1990-2000; World Database of Happiness, Happiness in Nations, Rank Report 2004/3b. Equality of happiness in 90 nations 1990-2000. How much citizens differ in enjoyment of their life as a whole; Economist Intelligence Unitƒ??s The Quality-of-Life calculated in 2005); quality of life
