Africa the Worst Contient for Mothers, Children

According to a recent Save the Children study, Africa is the worst place on Earth for mother and children.  As reported by ABC News:

Scandinavian countries sweep the top rankings for the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom tier, the report said.  Out of the 10 worst countries to be a mother or child, seven are in Africa.

In Sweden, which tops the list, nearly all women are literate.  In Ethiopia, only 34 percent of women are literate.  A mother in Ethiopia is 37 times more likely to see her child die in the first year of life than a mother in Sweden.

The United States ranked 11th. ...

"The Mothers' Index clearly shows that the quality of children's lives is inextricably linked to the health and education of their mothers," MacCormack added.  "In countries where mothers fare well, children fare well; in countries where mothers do poorly, children do poorly."

The low-ranking African countries identified by the study are of course poor and the Scandinavian countries that outrank them are comparatively wealthy.

Study: Wealthier Nations Generally Happier

Wealthier nations are generally happier ones; and, although the correlation is far from one-to-one, it is quite striking overall.

The study by Ronald Inglehart and H-D. Klingemann, "Genes, Culture and Happiness," MIT Press, 2000, compared GDP versus the mean percentage of the population subjectively happy with life as a whole, as determined by surveys.

The richest nations, the United States and Switzerland, in that order, had average happiness levels of 85% and above.  The poorest nations, Nigeria and Bangladesh, respectively, had happiness ratings of around 75%, though these nations were actually anomolies -- most nations with comparable wealth levels ranked lower on the happiness scale, as examination of the chart shows.

It is perhaps not surprising that the happy and prosperous countries also tend to be democratic with free markets.

See also Wealth and Happiness Don't Necessarily Go Hand in Hand, Wall Street Journal 8/13/04 via Van Sloan (sq.4mg.com).