Was searching to figure why Singapore is now reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*, and stumbled upon this site called IfItWereMyHome. It's a pretty nifty site that pulls stats from public databases like CIA World Factbook and WHO and uses them to compare countries head-to-head. They do this by positioning you as the 'average' person of one country and painting how your life would be like as the 'average' citizen of another country.
Since it's midway between the independence days of the two (major) countries I've called home - Singapore and Malaysia, thought I'd post the comparison of the two. Full comparison with source data here.
Few stats that stand out for me:
Babies. Topic du jour in Singapore right now. The underlying data is basically ~9 births per 1000 population in Singapore vs 22 births per 1000 population in Malaysia. That results in 2.6X more babies per person, quite a staggering disparity. To put it in perspective, if Singapore had Malaysia's birth rates, it'd have half a million more born and bred citizens in 10 years time. Would also mean half a million less foreigners needed in 20 odd years from now.
Income. Also quite fresh in the news that Singapore is reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*. This is based off PPP-adjusted GDP per capita of $14,800 for Malaysia and $50,300 for Singapore. In raw terms, the 'average' Malaysian could only afford 70% of the goods and services that the 'average' Singaporean could. Of course, if I recall correctly, the PPP basket of goods exclude property and cars... so the gulf isn't really as big as it seems.
Life expectancy. For Malaysia average life expectancy is 73.5, while in Singapore this is 82 years. Quite a big difference at over 10% longer lifespan. To again put in perspective, this is also in the range of half a million -less- citizens in 10 years if Singapore had Malaysia's average lifespan.
The existential question to pose here is - what should one do an extra 8.5 years?
Class divide. Here the comparison metric really doesn't work for me. The Gini coefficient, while a sound measure, is completely non-intuitive. Not easy to visualize in the same manner for comparing babies, income or life expectancy are. I mean, what does 4% less class divide really translate into? What's clear though, is that both Malaysia and Singapore are have unacceptably high Gini coefficients (46 and 48 respectively). This puts both countries in the same league as Kenya (48), Uganda (44) and Zimbabwe (50) !
A few tweaks I can think of that would make the site more useful, one is doing city-level comparison (i.e. KL instead of Malaysia), and another is to add some more practical livability stats like crime rates, entertainment venues/bars per population, etc. That'd really make it a proper reference site for would-be expats/foreign workers.
* So based on IMF data : Qatar is waaaay ahead of Singapore in GDP per capita, whether PPP adjusted or not. Qatar is at ~$103k , while Singapore is at ~$60k. Luxembourg also pips Singapore at $80k. The same rank order holds in other databases like CIA world factbook. The only reason why Singapore comes up tops in the Wealth Report by Citi & Knight Frank is simple, they left out Qatar and Luxembourg in the research! Singapore actually ranks third, or in Olympics framing- is a bronze medalist
