The Country Similarity Index attempts to quantify how similar countries are to each other relative to other countries. The index is a statistically-based way to measure this. 20% of the index is based on demographics. 10% of a country’s demographic score (2% of the overall Country Similarity Index score) is allocated for the average income per capita, percentage of millionaires, and poverty rate. The following is an explanation on how they were calculated:
Male Income
Most of the countries where men average more than $50,000 in income per year are located in Northern Europe, East Asia, or the Arabian Peninsula. On the other end of the spectrum, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have an extremely low amount of income per capita. The average man earns less than $1,000 per year in Burundi, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The United Nations is the main source of the data:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/estimated-gni-capita-ppp-male-constant-2011-ppp
Countries were categorized into the following groups by income per capita per year:
0-$5000, $5000-$10000, $10000-$20000, $20000-$35000, $35000-$50000, $50000-$100000
Female Income
Females average less income than males in every single country. However there are some places where women earn significantly less, including East Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. A lot of the difference can be explained by employment. Far fewer females have jobs than males in Arab countries. In East Asia, females are more often employed in non-professional jobs with lower wages than men. In general though, female income highly correlates with male income.
The United Nations is the main source of the data:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/estimated-gni-capita-ppp-female-constant-2011-ppp
Countries were categorized into the following groups by income per capita per year:
0-$4000, $4000-$8000, $8000-$16000, $16000-$24000, $24000-$40000, $40000-$56000
Millionaires per Capita
In most countries less than 0.5% of the people are millionaires. Switzerland is the only country where over 10% of its population are millionaires. European countries and the Anglosphere tend to have more than other regions of the world, but Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan also have a high percentage. However, there are many countries with a high average income that have a relatively low percentage of millionaires, like Brunei, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where wealth maybe there may be a few extremely wealthy families.
Credit Suisse is the main source of the data:
https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-databook-2019.pdf
Countries were categorized into the following groups by percentage of millionaires:
0-0.4%, 0.4-0.8%, 0.8-1.6%, 1.6%-3.2%, 3.2-6.4%, 6.4-12.8%
Poverty Rate
The poverty line is defined differently depending on the country, so it is difficult to compare between countries. Some countries have much higher income standards than others. Still, cost of living tends to be higher in countries with high average incomes, so having a higher line makes sense. However, China only has a 3.3% official poverty rate, but its line is only $400 per year, while the poverty line of the United States is more than 30 times more. As with average income, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have a high poverty rate, as well as countries in war torn areas, like Syria, South Sudan, and Somalia. East Asian countries, as well as countries where socialist and communist party are in power, are among those that report low poverty rates.
The CIA Factbook is the main source of the data:
https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/fields/population-below-poverty-line
Countries were categorized into the following groups by percentage of people in poverty:
0-8%, 8-16%, 16-32%, 32-48%, 48-64%, 64-80%
Obviously there is no one clear way to determine how similar one country is to another. How would you quantify how similar one country is to another?
Please leave any thoughts in the comments section.
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