Iceland has ranked third in a new quality of life index for expats run by Blacktower Financial Group. The index was calculated using six key metrics: world happiness ranking, average monthly salary, cost of living, property price to income ratio, quality of healthcare, and global peace level. Switzerland topped the list with Denmark coming in second, whilst Norway and Australia came after Iceland at fourth and fifth.
Iceland did particularly well in the global peace category with 1.072, the lowest score on the list compared to the USA’s 2.401 and Israel’s 2.735. In this case, lower scores indicate more peaceful countries. Iceland is also considered one of the happiest countries in the world, scoring a whopping 7.494–though we were beaten in this category by Finland’s 7.769. The least happy country of the 25 on the list was found to be Japan.
However, Iceland is definitely one of the most expensive countries to live in, topped only by Switzerland and Norway. Funnily enough, Switzerland and Norway also ranked in the top four overall, suggesting that contrary to popular belief, there may be some link between money and happiness.
The Blacktower Financial Group was formed in 1986 to provide independent wealth management advice. They preceded their index with the message: “There is more to life than cold economic and GDP numbers, so that’s why we’ve analysed data for quality of life relating to key metrics that determine happiness.”
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