Kenya is the Second Worst Country to Live in - EIU

By Staff Writer

Kenya has been ranked the second worst place for a child to be born in 2013. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, Kenya has the unenviable title of being the second worst country for a baby to enter the world behind Nigeria in 2013 print edition.

The respected publication's lottery of life methodology gave Kenya a score of 4.91, compared to Switzerland 8.22 which took the best country to be born in 2013.

The study found that Kenya’s GDP alone was inadequate in determining life satisfaction. Instead, it added such independent variables as life expectancy, the quality of family life, the state of political freedoms and job security.

Online, Kenyans roundly condemned the report, terming it inconclusive and unnecessarily shallow. For instance, it only covered 80 countries, creating the false impression that such nations as Chad, Somalia and Syria are better than Kenya. In July, the same Economist Unit ranked Nairobi as the second worst city to live in, only behind the Iranian capital city of Tehran.

“Are there 80 countries in the whole world?” questioned John Karugo an online blogger

The research is said to attempt to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in years to come.

Their index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys – how happy people say they are – to objective determinants of quality of life across countries.

One of the most important factors is being rich, but other factors come into play – including crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life.

In total, the index takes into account 11 indicators.

These include fixed factors such as geography, others that change slowly over time such as demography, social and cultural characteristics, and the state of the world economy.

The index also looks at income per head in 2030, which is roughly when children born in 2013 will reach adulthood.

People born in Switzerland will tend to be the happiest and have the best quality of life judged in terms of wealth, health and trust in public institutions.

The Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark also all make the top five in a ‘quality-of-life’ index highlighting where it is best to be born next year.