What might help is making a comprehensive list of things you’re looking for a in a country, assign importance to each of those things and then see which country rates highest in the important categories.
Going of you post I’d say:
Ability to complete phd (rated high, let’s say around .80 or .90)
Rational/secular population (rated moderately high .70)
Values self-expression (.70)
Happiness (also rather high, maybe .80)
Relative closeness to other countries (I don’t know, maybe .50 or .60?)
And I’d also add a couple of more (and if you start thinking about it, you’ll probably come up with a lot more):
Language barrier
Socio-economic system
Political situation
Public transport
How good you feel about the country
Apart from doing this, I’d also gather a lot of anecdotal data from people who live in those countries and especially people who moved to those countries or studied there.
Thank you, your comment is really useful. My main problem would be: “what are the things I should be looking for?”. I got fixated on the World Values Survey factors, but I might be wrong. I would gather happiness is important, but it might not vary for the same individual between countries. The “Relative closeness to other countries” is a difficult one, I thought it would be really important but some people here pointed out it mightn’t. I will address this later on my comment to Kaj.
You provided me with some additional possible factors. Here are my thoughts on them:
Language barrier
This is hard to account for. I’m expecting that in no developed country I would be put in a situation where relevant people (from my university) would not be talking in English if I’m on the conversation. If it is not true, this is majorly relevant. If it is true, this is mildly relevant. I would expect this would be both a function of English proficiency and willingness to talk in English. The first data is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index And indeed, as many have said, Sweden is number 1. However, I do not know how to find the “Willingness” factor.
Socio-economic system
Relevant. I believe this is accounted for on the World Value Survey, as type of government strongly covaries with values. More modern (rational-secular/self-expressing) have more liberal systems, while less modern have more strong governments. (while the really ancient ones have almost no State).
Political situation
Given all my choices are highly developed countries, I don’t think this is relevant. But I’m not completely sure. What did you mean here?
Public transport
Yes, indeed. Highly practical and not accounted for. Commuting times and cost, real estate market and so on are very important. One of the many reasons I have not considered London was because of extremely high rents. Also, this brings back to mind why I posted this. I remember reading a very useful post on how to choose a house, where it pointed out to many relevant but unaccounted factors, commuting was one of them. What I want is something similar for countries.
How good you feel about the country
Given I have never visited most of them, is this really relevant? Ideally, how I feel should track all the other relevant factors.
My main problem would be: “what are the things I should be looking for?”.
That’s hard to tell, since some factors will always be personal. What you could do is think about the stuff you like and dislike from your country and the countries you have visited. I wouldn’t have thought of “public transport” unless I noticed how terrible Belgium does it and how much better Germany and the UK do it.
Given all my choices are highly developed countries, I don’t think this is relevant. But I’m not completely sure. What did you mean here?
I can only really speak for parts of Europe, but there’s nuances in each country. The country I live in, for example, has most of its political power tied up in whether or not to split the country, making government less efficient than in neighboring countries. Another factor might be the number of parties, allowing for more nuance in government (the presence of smaller fringe parties might be particularly telling).
But it’s perfectly possible that none of this matters to you, so you can certainly ignore it if it doesn’t apply.
Given I have never visited most of them, is this really relevant? Ideally, how I feel should track all the other relevant factors.
I remember reading somewhere (but I really can’t remember where and a cursory check on google leads me nowhere) that people where generally happier with their car if they liked the way they felt about the car, instead of just going over an objective list of good car qualities. Maybe this plays less of a role with choosing a country (I certainly hope so) but it could be a forgotten factor otherwise.
Also keep in mind that sometimes, what you are looking for in a country is highly correlated with people being from elsewhere. So the people will be the kind of people who are “willing to move for reason X” and those tend to be interesting people.
If that is the case for you, as it is for me, you have to increase importance of multicultural metropolitan areas, and decrease the importance of big cities which almost have no foreigners.
What might help is making a comprehensive list of things you’re looking for a in a country, assign importance to each of those things and then see which country rates highest in the important categories.
Going of you post I’d say:
Ability to complete phd (rated high, let’s say around .80 or .90)
Rational/secular population (rated moderately high .70)
Values self-expression (.70)
Happiness (also rather high, maybe .80)
Relative closeness to other countries (I don’t know, maybe .50 or .60?)
And I’d also add a couple of more (and if you start thinking about it, you’ll probably come up with a lot more):
Language barrier
Socio-economic system
Political situation
Public transport
How good you feel about the country
Apart from doing this, I’d also gather a lot of anecdotal data from people who live in those countries and especially people who moved to those countries or studied there.
Thank you, your comment is really useful. My main problem would be: “what are the things I should be looking for?”. I got fixated on the World Values Survey factors, but I might be wrong. I would gather happiness is important, but it might not vary for the same individual between countries. The “Relative closeness to other countries” is a difficult one, I thought it would be really important but some people here pointed out it mightn’t. I will address this later on my comment to Kaj.
You provided me with some additional possible factors. Here are my thoughts on them:
This is hard to account for. I’m expecting that in no developed country I would be put in a situation where relevant people (from my university) would not be talking in English if I’m on the conversation. If it is not true, this is majorly relevant. If it is true, this is mildly relevant. I would expect this would be both a function of English proficiency and willingness to talk in English. The first data is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index And indeed, as many have said, Sweden is number 1. However, I do not know how to find the “Willingness” factor.
Relevant. I believe this is accounted for on the World Value Survey, as type of government strongly covaries with values. More modern (rational-secular/self-expressing) have more liberal systems, while less modern have more strong governments. (while the really ancient ones have almost no State).
Given all my choices are highly developed countries, I don’t think this is relevant. But I’m not completely sure. What did you mean here?
Yes, indeed. Highly practical and not accounted for. Commuting times and cost, real estate market and so on are very important. One of the many reasons I have not considered London was because of extremely high rents. Also, this brings back to mind why I posted this. I remember reading a very useful post on how to choose a house, where it pointed out to many relevant but unaccounted factors, commuting was one of them. What I want is something similar for countries.
Given I have never visited most of them, is this really relevant? Ideally, how I feel should track all the other relevant factors.
That’s hard to tell, since some factors will always be personal. What you could do is think about the stuff you like and dislike from your country and the countries you have visited. I wouldn’t have thought of “public transport” unless I noticed how terrible Belgium does it and how much better Germany and the UK do it.
I can only really speak for parts of Europe, but there’s nuances in each country. The country I live in, for example, has most of its political power tied up in whether or not to split the country, making government less efficient than in neighboring countries. Another factor might be the number of parties, allowing for more nuance in government (the presence of smaller fringe parties might be particularly telling).
But it’s perfectly possible that none of this matters to you, so you can certainly ignore it if it doesn’t apply.
I remember reading somewhere (but I really can’t remember where and a cursory check on google leads me nowhere) that people where generally happier with their car if they liked the way they felt about the car, instead of just going over an objective list of good car qualities. Maybe this plays less of a role with choosing a country (I certainly hope so) but it could be a forgotten factor otherwise.
Also keep in mind that sometimes, what you are looking for in a country is highly correlated with people being from elsewhere. So the people will be the kind of people who are “willing to move for reason X” and those tend to be interesting people. If that is the case for you, as it is for me, you have to increase importance of multicultural metropolitan areas, and decrease the importance of big cities which almost have no foreigners.