Actually, Qatar controls citizenship more than immigration. You can move there if you can find somebody who wants to hire you. But you'll never be eligible to become a citizen, no matter how long you're a resident. If you later quit the job, you'll be arrested. Your children, even if born in Qatar, also won't be eligible for citizenship; they'll have the same status you did. Describing the situation as "apartheid" would be a little strong, but only a little; it's definitely not one into which a person would want to place himself and his descendants.
3P: your post is a little over dramatic, with some strands of the story you weave I think coming from neighboring countries. It also depends quite a lot on where you are from. Some expat workers in Qatar are treated very well; others are treated little better than slaves. If it's much like Bahrain, though, then on average the expats with less prestigious passports are still better off there than in Saudi Arabia.
The accurate bit is that Gulf states are teeming with immigrants but they are incredibly stingy when it comes to giving out citizenship. There are strict racial, tribal, and nationalistic hierarchies; some written but many unwritten, that influence how you are treated in these countries.
some clarity: African and South Asian expats working legally in Saudi Arabia will have a sponsor and they have a lot of restrictions placed on them making it extremely difficult for them to do anything without their sponsor. Employees that find themselves in an abusive relationship with said sponsor might try to escape but if they do the sponsor can file a complaint placing these expats in a difficult legal situation that can take years to resolve.
In Bahrain, however, these same types of expats have a lot more freedom and their rights are better protected. They can move around more easily; I think they can leave the country without their sponsor's approval; and they also can switch jobs much more easily.
I think the situation in Qatar is closer to Bahrain than Saudi Arabia, but I've never actually been to Qatar except to the airport in Doha.
That being said, if Jezilly wants to move to Qatar to make money, all of the above is no reason not to. Western expats working in Gulf states often earn significantly more than Arab locals do. This is especially true in Oman, Bahrain, and the KSA... though Qataris, Kuwaitis, and Emiratis tend to be pretty well-off. Cost of living is low (outside of Kuwait and Dubai), taxes are minimal if not zero depending on where you work, salaries for certain nationalities are high.
These figures are largely meaningless unless put against the Gino coefficient in any case. GDP per capita only tells us how much each person would have if the entire income of the country was divided equally amongst every inhabitant. The day that happens in any country, I’ll be on the phone to ol’ Beelzebub to tell him he might want to switch on the thermostat.
It's also (and I assume most of the countries in this list) incredibly expensive to live. Ridiculously high rent, absurd gas prizes, everything in the shop costs about 3x more than you'll expect.
This quiz is PPP so it already has calculated in shop costs. (Which therefore not be high to people that work there. But could be quite high for people on vacation. I know not all money in a country is spread evenly amongst its citizens, ). But rent and gas prizes could be high, I believe those are not included. (and ofcourse, not ALL products are measured, so certain things could still cost a lot. I couldnt find a specefice list, but found that over 3000 goods and services were used for comparison (and other things)
I think I might invade Luxemburg tomorrow. Just me and my mum with our pitchfork. Should be a laugh. We'll have the whole place subjugated by tea time.
Way too small, imho. While you might hope to get a good income there, I've looked at the properties and any sensible money would not get enough space to live in. Might work if you have a multinational company paying for you.
Its not that easy to get a well paying job in Monaco. The mean income is high because well to do people from other parts of Europe moves there to avoid taxes, thus bringing wealth from other countries.
While I understand your opinion, according to your map, you have visited Tanzania and Kenya, where same-sex intercourse is illegal as well. And Russia isn't all that LGBT friendly either
@nicholasquiz Maybe @benjaminmarker is from there, or lived there as a child, or some other reason. What an add thing to call someone a hypocrite about.
You do all get that this is per-capita right? You can't just move to one of these countries and earn loads of money. The amount given is the total income earned in the country, then divided among the number of inhabitants. So that means you can have one really wealthy individual, and hundreds of really poor ones, and end with a very high per-capita income.
I've always contended that PPP (purchasing power parity) measures of income are not as relevant as nominal GDP per capita. I can see the arguments both ways. But if you live in a country where the cost of living is very cheap, that doesn't make you rich by international standards. Similarly, if the cost of living is very high, that doesn't make you poor. I made another test based on nominal GDP per capita, averaging data from the CIA World Fact Book (which is probably the most exhaustively researched and accurate set of statistics on world demographics anywhere), the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN.
I don't see it as "self-replying", I see it as adding additional thoughts, or sometimes giving additional info to clarify a previous comment. I'd say that's good.
PPP adjustment is intended to account for equivalency of value - for example, The Economist has its famous 'Big Mac Index' to estimate PPP. The idea being, that a Big Mac is identical wherever you go - and if one in Zurich costs the equivalent of $8 while one in NYC is $4, then the cost of goods is double. If salaries are also double, then the two places are considered to be cost-equivalent. There is much more, but that's the short version.
^ yes I know that. I just don't think it's a relevant way to measure the size of an entire nation's economy. Or income, as it is measured here, which is taking all income paid and then dividing it up per person. And the Big Mac index is a good example of why it's silly. A Big Mac in New York is *not* the same as a Big Mac in Manila. In one place it is shitty low-cost fast food. In another it is a high-end luxury. And its cost is affected by, among many other things, taxes, import duties, local labor costs, rent, market studies, competition, inflation, etc. They're definitely not equivalent and looking at them as if they are, you're going to end up with flawed results.
PPP is useful when looking at, for example, average wages amongst entry-level employees, or... um... it's a short list. It has its uses. It just gets overused a lot. The worst overuse of it is trying to measure total GDP. Per capita income is somewhere in the middle.
Just because the country is rich (due to high exports in technology), doesn't mean the income is distributed evenly. There probably is poor rural areas in Japan.
gandalf is correct. Japan has better income equality than many countries that make the list. They would likely rank higher on a list of highest median incomes.
Having lived in most areas of Japan, there is certainly low income for many areas. Other areas may be dragged down by tendency for women to stay at home even now as they get tax reductions for dependents. Even in Tokyo a high salary would be $50-100k, as there is still a preference to stay in a stable job rather than move to higher paying one, so it doesn't surprise me that they have a low average salary for the country.
I know this is an old comment, but there are only 14 countries that are more expensive than the United States. Japan is not one of them. Japan is not one of the world's 21 richest countries. It doesn't matter if you use PPP or nominal GDP.
It's misleading. Irish GDP is artificially high because their low corporation tax means a lot of international companies have HQs there - so a lot of revenue is recorded in Ireland even though it's not really Irish. Same goes for Luxemburg I think.
Qatar and Kuwait are both tiny compared to Saudi with much smaller, highly-urbanized populations. Both countries have enormous oil resources relative to their size. In absolute terms Saudi has more but measured per square kilometer it falls far behind. Saudis are well off compared to Yemenis, Syrians or Egyptians, but the average Saudi is not wealthy by American or Western European standards.
Looks like they've moved up quite a few places in the rankings as Saudi is on the list now and not even at the bottom. But still behind Qatar and Kuwait and the Emirates.
(Pulling something out of my ass here) Perhaps it is BECAUSE they are so wealthy that they were able to (somewhat peacefully) dismiss their government and start over. Just a theory.
Because they're ranked 26th and 30th, respectively, while this quiz inexplicably stops at 22. Japan is only $200 below the cutoff, but South Korea is $4k below.
It's not only income that counts in these stats, but also cost of living. Get away from the coast and many smaller cities in the US have a much lower cost of living.
Were Vatican open and honest about their finances, they'd be topping the list. After all, the Catholic Church is the financially largest 'corporation' after the Mafia, which only surpassed them last year.
^ Hadn't heard about this new discovery. That's interesting. The country is so tiny, where else could they look? Drilling further down?
Bahrain used up its oil reserves quite a while ago. The country now has a Russian vagina based economy. There are quite a few lower-class neighborhoods around the small island and even in Manama. They are not as wealthy as their Gulf neighbors. But not quite poor, either.
not a typo. Though last time I was there just a couple months ago I found out that some of the most famous and often-visited RV emporiums in Hoora had been shut down or repurposed, so maybe they're looking to diversify.
It's more to do with the very low population density, the population still hasn't recovered to where it was before the Irish famine, but the country is still doing very well financially.
It's primarily because of foreign investment - many major companies set up their European HQ in Ireland because of low corporation tax. So the per-capita income is actually a lot higher than the average wage.
What is this information based on? What things have been taken into account? Free education, health care level and the costs, maternity and paternity leave...
The income per capita is simply a countries GDP divided by the population. There's data for almost every country so it's easy to compare and rank. But of course it doesn't say anything about living standards.
GDP per capita is not simply about the median income or living standards of a particular country. While this is a very good, consistent and numerical way of comparing almost all countries, results can be heavily skewed by a small group of super-rich people or by the operation of large corporations in that country (such as in Ireland). Just because a nation has a high GDP does not necessarily mean that this filters down equally to its constituents and in an opposite way, nations that have quite good living standards may be omitted from the list as they don't have the rich individuals and corporations to boost their GDP
Why is 'Saudi Arabia' quoted at $55,300 here, when in the 'Focus Economics' listing it is given as $23,536. The rest of the figures seem about the same?
So Germany has dropped off the list since the reset. I can't believe at least a few of the countries on this list being ahead of Germany in per capita GDP.
I think the first time I did this quiz Australia was in the middle. They slip a couple of places every time. Now we are the last position. Time to say farewell...
Norway is the first country on the list where the wealth is based on a substantive and real economy.
The others before her are either harbours for moneymovers, with an oversized financial sector, or clan-based countries totally dependent on petroleum revenue. Ireland is, unfortunately, in the first category.
Norway would probably be even with the other Nordic countries if it wasn't for it's oil though. In terms of actual economic productivity I'd say 1st place in Europe should go to the Dutch.
As of 2020, the US is outranked by eleven countries. Six of these gain a significant amount of revenue from being tax havens (Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland). The other five all rank in the top six countries in terms of oil production per capita (Qatar, Brunei, UAE, Kuwait, Norway). Furthermore, the most populous among these is UAE which ranks 93rd in population among all countries. The combined populations of these eleven countries represent 0.54% of the world population, while the USA itself has 4.21% of the world population.
I knew Ireland was better off than the UK, but I'm amazed to discover it's more than TWICE as rich. As for Brunei, if you take one particular person's portion of the GDP out, I'm sure the country drops off the list entirely.
It does not tell the full story. This is GDP per capita and due to being a bit of a tax haven, Ireland is home to many major global corporations, including Facebook, Apple, Google and many pharmaceutical companies and obviously they boost the GDP by a lot. An ordinary Irishman is not that much richer than an ordinary Brit.
General reply to at least 70% of comments (maybe): Gini coefficient. When you separate the countries on the list by greater/smaller Gini coefficient, it tells you most of what you need to know.
anyways still 79%
The accurate bit is that Gulf states are teeming with immigrants but they are incredibly stingy when it comes to giving out citizenship. There are strict racial, tribal, and nationalistic hierarchies; some written but many unwritten, that influence how you are treated in these countries.
In Bahrain, however, these same types of expats have a lot more freedom and their rights are better protected. They can move around more easily; I think they can leave the country without their sponsor's approval; and they also can switch jobs much more easily.
I think the situation in Qatar is closer to Bahrain than Saudi Arabia, but I've never actually been to Qatar except to the airport in Doha.
PPP is useful when looking at, for example, average wages amongst entry-level employees, or... um... it's a short list. It has its uses. It just gets overused a lot. The worst overuse of it is trying to measure total GDP. Per capita income is somewhere in the middle.
Bahrain used up its oil reserves quite a while ago. The country now has a Russian vagina based economy. There are quite a few lower-class neighborhoods around the small island and even in Manama. They are not as wealthy as their Gulf neighbors. But not quite poor, either.
Is that a typo? Or do I not understand the reference.
I doubt that.
Unfortunately.
Now this does not clear the whole truth.
Roosa
The others before her are either harbours for moneymovers, with an oversized financial sector, or clan-based countries totally dependent on petroleum revenue. Ireland is, unfortunately, in the first category.
In other words, USA NUMBER ONE!
Seriously, though, instead of raising taxes on regular people, the U.S. needs to find a way to stop these tax-dodging megacorps like Apple and Google.