Taiwan ranks 18th out of 37 countries on the Your Better Life Index. That’s the word from the government’s statistics office on Friday.
Last year, Taiwan began doing its own version of the OECD’s Your Better Life Index using the same format of 24 indicators. This year, Taiwan had a score of 6.93 points, which is 0.29 points up from last year. Taiwan’s score was higher than that of Japan and South Korea.
The minister of the government’s statistics office Shih Su-mei explains how Taiwan did this year. "If we compare ourselves with the countries in the OECD Your Better Life Index, we are ranked 18th, which is one rank higher than last year," said Shih. "We’re about in the middle. We have improved in 5 out of 11 areas, and in 9 out of 24 indicators. We are ranked 3rd in student’s cognitive ability which is 3 places higher than last year. This factor means that students’ reading, math, and science have all improved."
Taiwan also improved in the areas of individual income, individual financial wealth, and average yearly income if purchasing power parity (PPP) is factored in. In these three areas, Taiwan is ranked tenth, second and fifth respectively.
However, Taiwan did regress to 35th in the area of quality of environment. That was due to Taiwan’s high housing prices.