Better to be Born in the PRL
At what has to be the most depressing point in the year, TVP's Panorama program last night managed to make everyone feel a bit more depressed by reporting that Poland is a much worse place to be born today than it was in 1987. They had some justification for this beyond just looking out of the window at the sleety grey sky and wondering why they had bothered to get out of bed. Their report was based on two studies carried out by The Economist magazine, one in 2012 and one a quarter of a century earlier.
Panorama had the idea of asking a new mother whether she thought this country was a good place to be born and got the rather unsurprising answer that she though Poland was a fine place to be born and would they please stop asking stupid questions and go away. Her new-born baby refused to answer questions, but seemed unconcerned at being Polish.
I found The Economist's conclusions rather surprising but, aware that it is a highly respected international journal, decided to look into the data a little more carefully. The 1987 report placed Poland in 23rd place out of 48 nations considered. This year's report places Poland 33rd out of 80.
The good news is that The Economist itself describes the 1987 report as 'light-hearted,' which means they made most of it up – inventing gross domestic product figures is considered a wild and hilarious party game among economists. The new report is supposed to be much more rigorous, and takes into account international life-satisfaction surveys that didn't exist in the 1980s.
To get around the absence of comparable satisfaction surveys in 1987, the giggling economists of the day included a 'Philistine factor,' to measure a nation's cultural wealth, and a 'yawn index,' to indicate how boring or exciting they thought that country was. For example, Italy received a maximum 'Philistine factor' mark of 12 (meaning it had a very rich culture), while Canada got only 3. Italy also scored very well in the 'yawn index' with 11, while poor old Canada only got 1, indicating that Canadians were barely able to remain awake through the daylight hours.
For comparison, Poland received a 'Philistine factor' of 7, and a 'yawn index' of 9, meaning The Economist thought the PRL was moderately cultural and quite exciting – as we have already seen, economists have strange ideas about fun. Poland’s immediate neighbours in the 1987 ranking are an interesting pair – the USSR was one step ahead in equal 21st place, and Denmark (‘Philistine factor’ 1; ‘yawn index’ 1!) was in 24th.
Skipping forward to the present day Poland, Denmark and Russia are no longer close in the rankings. Denmark is suddenly in 5th place (maybe things suddenly became more cultural and interesting there), Russia is now way down near the bottom in 72nd place, while Poland remains somewhere in the middle.
It was when I looked for my own country on the lists that I suddenly began to take them less seriously. Both in 1987 and 2012, The Economist placed France above the UK. Since only a lunatic or a Frenchman could consider it better to be born on the eastern shore of the English Channel, I think we can all safely conclude that The Economist should be regarded as a work of fiction – as if we needed more evidence that economists have no idea what they are talking about.