International students often come to Australia not just to study but to build a new life. So the decision about which country best suits your ambitions and goals may be the most important one you’ll take in your life. What factors would you consider to be important? Safety and a nice climate would help. living cost and relatively near your home country are important. A multi cultural population makes it easier to find something from home nearby while other factors include language, job security and possibly a sense of freedom and democracy. But if you are after a permanent residency and the world is your playground, it would most certainly be economic factors that would attract your attention. Which country would you choose in terms of economical outlook? This week I’ll look at labour productivity and GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
GDP
The GDP of a country tells you something about how much the population as a whole earns each year. And there often is a relationship between the amount the whole population earns and your possible share in it.
Follow this link to find a table with GDP per head of the population in OECD countries around the world. It shows that in 2007 the people in Luxemburg were earning almost US$ 80,000 per head. Second came Norway with US $53,000 and the United States came third with US$ 45,000. The list continued with Ireland (45,000) Switzerland (41,000) Netherlands (39,000) and Canada (38,500). Australia came at 9
th place (US$ 37,500) followed by the UK (US$ 35,000).
For example Italy (US$ 30,000) and New Zealand (US$ 27,000) came further down the list. While it does not say much about your buying power (price levels) it roughly means that the chances of earning good money are better in Luxemburg, Norway or the US as in New Zealand. Does this mean, based on economic factors, we should all try and get a PR in for example the US?
Work hours
Well let’s look at another figure:
The GDP per hour worked (link, second table). Working hours are not similar in nations around the world. Some people work on average longer hours per week than others and there can be quite a significant difference. While the average hours worked per week in the Netherlands and Norway is 28 (shorter working weeks and a lot of part-timers), people in Greece work 43 hours on average and Korea tops the list with a staggering 46 hours on average a week. In the middle are The UK (33 hours), The US (34 hours) and Australia with 35 hours a week. So if you don’t like to work long hours it seems like Norway and The Netherlands are the way to go.
Best of two worlds
But what if you are like most of us: You like the opportunity to earn good money but you prefer not to work all that long for it. What country would you choose? Well your top twelve would be
1. Luxembourg, 2. Norway, 3 Ireland, 4 Belgium, 5 Netherlands, 6 France 7 United States, 8 Germany, 9 Sweden, 10 Austria, 11 United Kingdom, 12 Australia.
You can see that you need to be in central Europe to have the best of both worlds, with for example France entering the top 10 even before the US. It seems that the phrase `Living like God in France` has some truth in it. The Anglo Saxon countries (exept for Ireland) come lower down the ladder with US at 7 and UK and Australia at 11 and 12.
The conclusion is that maybe you should consider learning French or Norwegian instead of English?
Let me know what you think, leave a comment!
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