Financially

Stressed

Cuntries

The nations under the most (and least) financial pressure

Many things can stress us out in our day to day lives, but no matter where you live in the world, it’s likely that finances are right up there.

From making sure you have enough money coming in to pay the bills, covering the costs of living and even just making sure that you have a job, money can be one of the world’s biggest stressors. But which countries have things the worst?

Note that for the comparison we’ve stuck to developed countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Most Financially Stressed Least Financially Stressed

Key

Rate Country Average Monthly Salary (USD) Unemployment Rate Average House Price (three bed) per square metre (USD) Average Monthly Rent (USD) Average Monthly Cost of Living (family of four) Overall score

The country with the lowest average salary

Colombia

(US$320)

The country with by far the lowest average income of those which we looked at was Colombia, with annual salaries averaging at $320 a month.

That’s around $4,000 less than that in the country with the highest salary, Luxembourg.

The country with the worst unemployment rate

Costa Rica

(20.06%)

Costa Rica had the highest unemployment rate of the OECD countries, with 20.06%, which was a considerable amount more than the likes of Greece (16.20%) in second and Spain (16.10%) in third.

The country with the highest average house prices

South Korea

(US$12,217pm2)

A big part of the reason South Korea had such a high financial stress score is due to the high cost of property in the country, which averages out at $12,217.

To put that into context, that’s over double the cost of Australia and over 1,500% higher than Turkey.

The country with the highest average monthly rent

Luxembourg

(US$3,108)

By some distance, the country where the residents pay the most on rent is the tiny state of Luxembourg, with an average rent of over $3,000 per month.

Despite being a very small country, Luxembourg is a very wealthy nation, hence why rents are so much higher than the rest of the countries on our list.

The country with the highest average monthly cost of living

Iceland

(US$4,631)

Finally, we look at the average cost of living for a family of four (excluding rent), which is highest in the Nordic country of Iceland, at $4,631 per month.

While salaries are also high in Iceland, it’s still known for being one of the most expensive countries in the world, with grocery prices often high due to the fact that much of the country’s food is imported.

Methodology

We analysed each OECD country on the following five factors, giving each country a normalised score out of 10 for each factor, before taking a weighted average score across all five factors, with 50% weighting for the average salary and 50% for the remaining four factors.

Average salary

The average monthly wage for according to Numbeo, as of June 21st 2021.

Unemployment rate

The unemployment rate for November 2020 (the most recent month for which data for all nations was available) according to OECD data, measured in numbers of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of unemployed people plus those in employment) and is seasonally adjusted.

Average house price (three bed) per m2

Average monthly rent

Average monthly cost of living (family of four)

Each of the above factors were sourced from Numbeo, as of June 21st 2021.

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