In a classic case of “too many statistics spoil the broth”, two different global survey rankings have been published this week seemingly contradicting each other when it comes to living in Bangkok and Thailand.
The first was the Mercer Quality of Living survey which ranked Bangkok 129th out of 230 cities for quality of living and 173rd for expats’ personal safety.
The reason given for the comparatively low ranking is the political turbulence of recent years.
“Following considerable political unrest and terrorist attacks in several tourist areas over the last few years, Bangkok ranked 173rd for personal safety,” said the report.
Here was the Twitter reaction…
@justindunne @JohnP1752 “dangerous” because of the political situation??? Give me a break. Dangerous because of the sidewalks, maybe.
— Eric (@thaicam) February 25, 2016
Here’s how the rest of Southeast Asia fared in the quality of living rankings:
- Singapore – 26
- Kuala Lumpur – 86
- Bangkok – 129
- Manila – 136
- Jakarta – 142
Taking the top spot was Vienna, Austria.
Also published this week were the annual Bloomberg ‘Most Miserable Economies’ rankings.
Conversely, Thailand did very well in this survey, taking the top spot for the second year running as the world’s happiest economy.
The ranking of 63 economies is determined by looking at the rate of employment and inflation.
Thanks to Thailand’s incredibly low unemployment rate of just 0.56 percent – due to structural issues whereby the unemployed tend to quickly seek income from the informal sector and part-time work – the Kingdom is apparently the least miserable worldwide.
It beats even Singapore, who came in second place, and is followed by Switzerland, Taiwan and Japan.
The dubious accolade of the most miserable world economy goes to Venezuela, thanks to its insane inflation – 98.3 percent in 2015 – and a 6.8 percent unemployment rate.
Featured image is by DeeMakMak and used under a Creative Commons licence
