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Comment by superswordfish | Hacker News Reader

Programmers (and their children) don't really have to be born in a particular country to have good quality of life. That sort of ranking is more useful if you're poor. There is the "safety net" factor, but again, less important when you have skills that pay well.

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I agree it's not perfect but it is proxy for life style. The US or UK is great if your want to have a career, work for (or trying to sell to) a big company and be part of something bigger than yourself. Southern Europe is has sunshine, good food and social life. Germany or France is good if you want to work for a family business.

The reason the Nordic countries top these list is because they have things like good working conditions, time for yourself, overall decent education systems, relativly low bureaucracy, universal healthcare etc. If you're in the US you can change jobs until you find one where they respect you, pay for extended vacations yourself, move to a good school district, pay lawyers to handle things for you and have private health insurance.

What you can't buy is not having to care. That's what the Nordic countries are good at. You can focus your energy on the things that matter. You'll find a disproportionate amount Nordic people in almost all "digital subcultures", from e-sports to systems programming to startups.

This is changing in some ways. The Nordic countries are becoming more like the rest of the world with health care systems that are hard to navigate, high private debt and valuing status over substance. But it's still a very good place to live.

If you can migrate, you don't have to be anything in particular. Otherwise, the place of birth is perhaps the strongest "macroscopic" predictor of your income.

Sure, but it's a bit odd, in the context of startup centers, to mention a place's ranking as one of the best places to be born -- most people in a position to relocate themselves to work at a startup are already fairly secure, and their children will be too.

How do you figure the safety net bit -- especially with the medical industry?

If you are a citizen of a country like Australia, the medical safety net is a life saver. No way will insurance pay for complete cancer treatments.

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