The data above has been collected on a continuous basis by OECD Better Life Index since 2011. To date there are over 60,000 responses from over 180 countries.

Interestingly, most developed nations, including USA, Canada, Western and Central European as well as Nordic countries tend to value life satisfaction and health most, countries that on the happy planet index did not rate quite as high as those in Central and South America. Why do you think is this?

South America, on the other hand, is the continent where education is by far the top priority in life. Arguably, it’s the low disposable income that encourages people to view education as a means of succeeding in life, but other cultural sentiments also play a huge role.

In Europe, the vast majority of countries value life-satisfaction and health most. It’s quite interesting that people from countries that are placed close to each other tend to have the same priorities. In fact, only a few Eastern European countries have different priorities compared to the rest.

Only Slovenia and Georgia put the environment as their top priority on the list. Romania is the only country that values Education more than anything else and Albania and Ukraine consider income to be most important. Moldova is also the only country to consider jobs most important.

Surprisingly, Monaco residents are primarily concerned with their safety, as are the respondents from United Arab Emirates and Japan. Australia is perhaps one of the very few developed nations that puts the work-life balance as their top priority.

There may be quite a number of patterns to explore in this map and a number of explanations for why people from different countries pursue different things. Tell us something we don’t know, why are people from different countries have different priorities?