You are right. Japan is still above most of the big Western countries. I also wonder how education became one of the three key factors for "quality of life". I would rather look at the diseases rate, time spent in ill health, size and comfort of accommodation (comfort is hard to evaluate, but can be calculated by the percentage of houses with TV, computer, insulation, etc.), life satisfaction, freedom, and of course equality between men and women and GDP at PPP, which are already counted.Originally Posted by Ardeo
I have made my own research on the topic. Some of my statistics are explained here
Health & Life expectancy
Japan ranks quite high here. According to Nationmaster, Japan's life expectancy in 2005 is the 6th highest in the world, and highest among major countries. Obesity is low. The weak points are the high suicide rate, high percentage of smokers, and high incidence of osteoporosis and dementia among the elderly.
Accommodation
This is controversial. Although Japan ranks quite high when looking at the number of TV per household or other electronic equipments, housing is typically poorly built, smaller than in the West, and lack what is considered as basic in some Western countries, such as insulation, central heating or double glazing. 1/3 of houses are built in non-fire-proof wood. What is more, recent scandals have revealed that at least 20% of houses in Japan use potentially life-threatening asbestos. Overall, this leads me to give a bad score for Japan regarding housing.
Society
This one is also controversial. Crime rate is still very low in Japan, but women get molested more than in Western countries, juvenile crime is proportionally high, and social rules tend to be so strict that many Japanese resent it (which partly results in a high suicide rate, and many Japanese moving to Western countries).
Happiness
Nationmaster ranks Japan 34th in term of Life satisfaction, behind all Western countries.
As for Happiness, Japan gets the 19th position, only before Spain, Italy and Portugal in the West.
Freedom & Democracy
Freedom in decision making is the lowest among developed countries. As for political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House has classified Japan as rank 1.5. It isn't bad on a worldwide basis, but Japan is in fact behind all Western countries and some others regarding political freedom. Likewise, World Audit has ranked Japan 25th for freedom of press, again behind all Western countries.
World Audit gives Japan the 30th position for Democracy, again behind Western countries. For corruption, Japan is 21st, behind all Western countries except Portugal, Italy and Greece.
Equality between men and women
As the article from Asahi said, Japan (43rd worldwide) is well behind not only developed countries, but many developing countries too (behind Tanzania !).
Economy
After 15 years of economic depression, Japan now ranks 17th in terms of GDP at PPP, but is still at comparable levels to France, Germany and the UK. However, Japan's public debt is much higher (in percentage of GDP) than any Western country, which is not promising for the future of the economy.
Conclusion
Apart for its high life expectancy, relatively good health, low crime rate, and reasonable GDP per capita (far from exceptional though), Japan ranks well behind Western countries in all other fields, from freedom, democracy and gender issues, to quality of accommodation, life satisfaction and happiness. So can we really consider Japan a good place to live from the point of view of quality of life ? Worldwide, yes, but comparing to almost any Western countries certainly not.
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