Germany’s ranking drops in international quality of life index

Germany has dropped four places in the 2023 international Quality of Life ranking, according to crowd-sourced global database Numbeo. House price to income ratio, healthcare and traffic commute time are among criteria considered in the ranking.

The Numbeo Quality of Life ranking 2023

Germany is regularly heralded as one of the countries with a high quality of life, but according to data from Numbeo, standards in the country are decreasing.

The federal republic has ranked 11th in the world in the Numbeo biannual ranking, which assesses six criteria; purchasing power, pollution, the ratio of house prices to incomes, cost of living, safety, healthcare, traffic commute time and climate.

In some criteria, such as climate or safety, countries perform better when they score higher. In others, pollution or house price to income ratio, countries will rise up the international ranking if they score lower.

Best and worst countries for quality of life

Apart from two outliers, European countries dominated the top 10 spots. The Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland took the first three places respectively. The same three European countries had taken the top three spots in the previous year’s ranking when Switzerland took first and the Netherlands third place.

An unsurprising list of Luxembourg, Finland, Iceland and Austria was followed by a brief appearance from two countries outside Europe, with Oman and Australia taking eighth and ninth place. Remaining in the same spot as the previous index, Norway came in 10th place.

While Germany ranked 7th place in 2022, this year saw the country slip to 11th when it comes to quality of life. Sandwiched between neighbouring Norway and distant New Zealand, Germany scored 179,0 in the index.

Within the past year, the cost of living has risen exponentially in Germany, largely due to the Ukraine war and its knock-off effects on inflation. Meanwhile, Germany faces an increasingly urgent housing crisis and lots of people have spent 74 hours of their year sitting around in traffic jams during their commute. 

Countries predominantly in the global south were ranked in the bottom five for quality of life: Nigeria, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Sri Lanka and Iran. 

The top 10 countries in the index were as follows: 

1. The Netherlands
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Luxembourg
5. Finland
6. Iceland
7. Austria
8. Oman
9. Australia
10. Norway

For the full ranking and further information on how Numbeo calculates the scores you can visit their website.

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