But not as good as Iceland, Norway, and Australia. So we could be a lot better.
Your information is out of date, Anna. As of 2008, Canada ranks above Australia, and below Norway and Iceland (but above Sweden).
List of countries by Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USA is No. 15, USA always ranks fairly low in terms of quality of life.
But third in the whole world is not bad at all, I will take it.
But the point is, there is very little difference between the top countries. Thus Norway and Iceland (No.s 1 and 2) have an index of .968, while Canada has index of .967 (Australia, behind Canada has an index of .965). So it really doesn’t matter whether Canada is No, 1, 2, 3 or 4, they are all very close.
And Canada has consistently been at the very top or near the top for a long time now. By comparison, index for USA is .950, far below the top ranking countries.
So whether Canada is No, 1, 2 or 3 is really quibbling, in my opinion. The survey says that quality of life in Canada is very good, among the best in the world, and that is good enough for me.
Incidentally, India and China, the upcoming countries are 132 and 94 respectively.