Vague?

Mercer hardship allowance recommendations

Mercer evaluates local living conditions in all the 420 cities it surveys worldwide. Living conditions are analysed according to 39 factors, grouped in 10 categories:

• Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
• Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
• Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
• Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
• Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
• Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
• Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
• Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
• Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
• Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)

The scores attributed to each factor allow for city-to-city comparisons to be made. The result is a Quality of Living Index which compares the relative differences between any two locations. For the indices to be used in a practical manner, Mercer has created a grid that allows companies to link the resulting index to a Quality of Living Allowance amount by recommending a percentage value in relation to the index.

Here's a good reason: to lower the number of wingeing Americans who give the rest of us a bad reputation here.

First of all it's 215 cities not 420....and yes, they are vaguely defined and don't represent an actual quality of life scale. What about traffic per capita..is that accounted for? You cannot simply say that Zurich has less traffic than let's say Guangzhou...compared to a per capita basis, Zurich might suffer from more congestion.
Availability of food and such...how can you even put a Swiss city on a mercer list as there simply isn't much food or consumer goods available past midnight....those are jsut 2 examples that quickly came to mind. The mercer index doesn't represent reality...it is simply skewed.

yeah, you ought to be the first one on a plane....

After 23 years here, and rather enjoying it, I think I'll stay, thanks very much.

I figured that you would comment on the last post and not the one before....

Mercer is a pretty reputable company and they have been doing the quality of life survey for awhile now. I wouldn't discount them because it's a general overview of the country and cities. Mercer and the Economist Intelligence Unit are both widely used by politicians to measure the quality of life. (Which btw, EUI still rates multiple Swiss cities in the top 10) Monocle rates Zurich as number 1 for 2009. There's obviously got to be something good going on in Switzerland for so many of it's cities to show up on these quality of life/standard of living surveys all the time.

Compare the poorest of the poor from the United States with the poorest in Switzerland, and maybe you'll see more of the important differences there. Everyone here on EF is obviously lucky enough to be on a computer, so really none of us can probably complain too much in comparison. There are bad parts of Switzerland of course, but overall, many people more can find a nice way of life than say in the States.

I am not talking about the weather .I am talking about the cold Like in here and in Texas

Whats your Pick of the 140tee best city's,would be interesting

Your posts are based on personal bitterness about something that I am unqualified to remark about. Tell it to your shrink.

No, my posts are based on living abroad and not having to deal with certain garbage. If you're not used to certain standards and services and you feel comfortable with this overhyped excuse of organized living then that's ok...but don't come with your immature garbage that I should either go home or tell it to my shrink...

The Mercer index doesn't include plenty of integral variables that make up a living standard.

This thread has wandered a bit too far, it is now just sniping back and forth. It is now closed.