No 30 - Top 20 Countries for GP Quality of Life (GP-QOL) - As determined by the Big Mac Index

tldr

The Big Mac Index (BMI) is a real economic tool and helps you compare countries. Using the BMI, Switzerland has the most expensive Big Macs but also the best paid GPs.

No 27b - The Confirmed Top 10 Best Places to Work as a Doctor in 2022

I recently wrote a piece ranking countries by their estimated work-life balance for doctors and this left me feeling a bit wishy-washy. It was very subjective and then updated on a qualitative basis by a relatively small survey participant sample.

So, I thought I would “nerd-out” and do something similar but with numbers!

Just like when you compare absolute-risk and relative-risk, comparing countries and quality of life is pretty tricky and can be misleading.

Should you just rank places by how many zero’s are in the monthly pay packet? Probably not.

Should you convert all national salaries into a common denominator, say the US Dollar so that you are comparing like with like? Not a bad start, it will certainly give you an idea of who relatively earns the most.

But how do you work out the quality of life comparator? Because earning more Dollars doesn’t necessarily mean a higher QOL.

Luckily, in 1986 the Economist solved this issue with The Big Mac Index. The BMI is a really handy and weird little stat that helps economists work out the relative Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of different currencies. Essentially, what is the cost of a Big Mac in the local currency. Big Macs are the same all around the world and therefore you have a standardised measure to compare the value of the currency too.

So, why is this relevant?

Well, I have taken the Big Mac Index of Jan 2022 and I have used it to compare the GP Salaries for 20+ countries around the world to help work out which place would be the best place to work as a GP - if you want to buy the most stuff with the same amount of work.

Table 1

Table 1 is the current Big Mac Index, ranked most expensive Big Mac to least expensive. It also has the exchange rate between the national currency and the US Dollar.

Table 2

Table 2 has been ranked by how many Big Macs a high earning GP could buy each year in that country.

If you are like me, then a larger quantaty of tasty meat product definitely equals a higher QOL. I was very surprised to see that Switzerland came No 1 on both lists. It has the most expensive Big Mac and it still has the best paid GPs in absolute and relative terms!

As you can see, the UK did not rank particularly well in GP-BMI terms. However, weirdly it did beat the USA, because of a slightly cheaper Big Mac.

Another interesting finding was that NZ came out way above Aus. There you have it down-under fans, the decisive victory for NZ this year!

If you are like mean and barely mono-lingual, then I guess we should be heading to Canada or South Africa. Thats what the BMI says!

Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below.

If you disagree with the numbers in Table 2, then also let me know. My references are below. Method = Google “Average Salary AND country” then review the top 3 sites for each country. Normally Salary Expert or Salary Explorer.

• https://fxssi.com/big-mac-index

• https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

• https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

• https://www.ig.com/uk/trading-strategies/what-is-the-big-mac-index-180905

• https://medicfootprints.org/10-highest-paying-countries-for-doctors/

• http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=179&loctype=1&job=919&jobtype=3

• https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/family-physician/pakistan