Inglês — reading comprehension - interpretação de texto

Where to be born in 2013

Warren Buffett, probably the world's most successful

investor, has said that anything good that happened to him

could be traced back to the fact that he was born in the

right country, the United States, at the right time (1930).

A quarter of a century ago, when The World in 1988 lightheartedly

ranked 50 countries according to where would

be the best place to be born in 1988, America indeed came

top. But which country will be the best for a baby born in

2013?

To answer this, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a

sister company of The Economist, has this time turned

deadly serious. It earnestly attempts to measure which

country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy,

safe and prosperous life in the years ahead. Its qualityof-life

index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction

surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective

determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being

rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that

counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the

health of family life matter too. In all, the index takes 11

statistically signifi cant indicators into account.

What does all this, and likely developments in the years

to come, mean for where a baby might be luckiest to be

born in 2013? After crunching its numbers, the EIU has

Switzerland comfortably in the top spot, with Australia

second. Small economies dominate the top ten. Half of

these are European, but only one, the Netherlands, is from

the euro zone. The Nordic countries shine, whereas the

crisis-ridden south of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain)

lags behind despite the advantage of a favourable climate.

The largest European economies (Germany, France and

Britain) do not do particularly well.

America, where babies will inherit the large debts of the

boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place. Despite

their economic dynamism, none of the BRIC countries

(Brazil, Russia, India and China) scores impressively.

Among the 80 countries covered, Nigeria comes last: it is

the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013.

Source: The Economist print edition (adapted), Nov 21, 2012.

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