Australia ranked the best place in the world for young people
WHEN it comes to jobs, health, education and politics, there is one country that tops the world rankings for young people to live in. Hint: It's not the US.
ON September 19, 2013, The Commonwealth released the Youth Development Index Report (YDI), the first index measuring the development and empowerment of young people in countries across the globe.
While there have been metrics designed to measure development in the past, what is unique about this is that it specifically targets youth development, which is defined as: "enhancing the status of young people, empowering them to build on their competencies and capabilities for life.
It will enable them to contribute and benefit from a politically stable, economically viable, and legally supportive environment, ensuring their full participation as active citizens in their countries."
The YDI Report is a document detailing inter-country comparisons of the environment for young people, aged 15 to 29, across five key areas: education, health, employment, civic participation and political participation.
According to their press release: "YDI was formulated to help decision-makers identify and learn from areas of success, pinpoint priority areas for investment, and track progress over time."
Accompanying the index report was the Methodology Report, a thorough explanation and rationale of the construction of the index, including how each indicator is weighted and where the data came from.
The methodology was developed by independent academic experts from across The Commonwealth, in conjunction with the Institute for Economics and Peace.
While not a comprehensive account of development due to lack of data in certain regions, they were able to rank 170 countries based on their score, which ranged from 0 being the lowest youth development while 1 being the highest. The findings show that Australia topped the list, being the best country for youth development, with .86 points.
Here is the list of the top 10:
1. Australia - 0.86
2. Canada - 0.82
3. South Korea - 0.81
4. Netherlands - 0.80
5. Germany - 0.80
6. New Zealand - 0.80
7. Switzerland - 0.80
8. United States - 0.80
9. Japan - 0.79
10. Slovenia - 0.79
This story originally appeared on The Huffington Post.
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