Australia ranked second in the world for quality of life

A person’s opportunities to lead a long and healthy life, to have access to education, health care and material goods, to enjoy political freedoms and to be protected from violence are all strongly influenced by where they live. And if you listen to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Australia is a top choice for anyone looking everything listed above.

Recently, the UNDP released its 2009 Human Development Report titled “Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, in which it ranked Australia 2nd overall, with a score of .970 on the human development index (HDI). The report provided an index for 182 countries with Norway ranking first (.971), and Iceland (.969), Canada, (.966) and Ireland (.965) rounding out the top five.

Each year, over 5 million people cross international borders to go and live in a developed country; the number who move to a developing nation or within their country is much greater, although exact figures are harder to come by. For those who choose this path, migration almost always involves some level of financial and psychological risk. So it goes without saying that choosing the right country to immigrate to is a decision of great importance.

For example, someone born in Thailand can expect to live seven more years, to have almost three times as many years of education, and to spend and save eight times as much as someone born in neighboring Myanmar. These differences in opportunity create immense pressures to move. Thankfully, the 2009 report provides statistics and carefully detailed methodologies of how it arrived at an HDI index for each country profiled. In brief, the HDI measures a country’s human development in three basic dimensions:

1. A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth

2. Access to knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrollment ratio in education

3. A decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) US dollars

The report also identifies a number of key factors associated with immigration and some of its findings cast new light on common immigration misconceptions. For example, migration from developing to developed countries accounts for only a fraction of human movement (37%) with migration from one developing economy to another or within a single country being much more common (60%). It also goes on to state that, the majority of migrants, far from being victims, tend to be successful, both before they leave their original home and on arrival in their new one.

Other findings of note include the fact that financial gains can be large for the high-skilled as well as the low-skilled. The wages of Chinese entry-level professors from 2002 - 2006, for example, were less than 20 percent of their Australian counterparts, so those who were able to relocate to this country reaped considerable gains. Furthermore, it was discovered that government regimes in both developed and developing countries place a premium on high-skilled workers. 92% of developing and 100% of developed countries profiled were open to temporary skilled migrants; for permanent skilled migration the figures were 62% and 93%, respectively. But in the case of unskilled workers, the figures dropped to 62% of developing and 50% developed countries that were open to permanent migration of unskilled workers.

For those interested in learning more about the Australia’s immigration policies, requirements and procedures, there is a wealth of resources available online. Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship is a great starting point for individuals looking to conduct research on the topic. Alternatively, there are companies and organizations such as ISA Group that exist specifically to help facilitate a smooth and successful immigration process.