No, I’m not talking in terms of who thinks they might be thinking too much about thinking. I’m pretty sure I could be in the running for that ranking all on my own. Rather, the folks at MyPostcard endeavored to find out just how thoughtful we are when it comes to compassion and kindness. The Most Thoughtful Societies Index understands that no country is perfect. However, “respecting and protecting basic human rights should be a minimum expectation.”

Countries with laws or systemic flaws (that they’re not trying to fix) that impede upon human rights were immediately disqualified. Beyond that, MyPostcard looked at a number of factors that are meant reflect how “thoughtful” a particular society is. Put another way, how much do the the people care about and care for one another?

Top 10 Overall Most Thoughtful Societies

The overall scores on the Most Thoughtful Societies Index, much like for each of the individual indicators discussed a little further down, are normalized on a [50-100] scale. The country at the top gets an automatic score of 100, and the country at the bottom gets a score of 50. For the top 10, Canada ranks in second place.

  1. Netherlands – 100
  2. Canada – 99.2
  3. Finland – 96.94
  4. Australia – 96.25
  5. New Zealand – 95.67
  6. Sweden – 94.65
  7. Germany – 93.82
  8. Iceland – 93.78
  9. Ireland – 93.13
  10. USA – 93

You’ll notice that all of the countries in the top ten are so-called “western” countries. (We won’t get into the semantics of why I include Australia and New Zealand in that broad categorization. That’s a whole other discussion for another day.) Interestingly, the first “non-western” country to make the overall list is Mongolia in 24th place with an overall rating of 75.73. Japan comes in 26th place with 73.31, followed by Costa Rica in 28th place with 72.86 and South Korea in 29th place with 72.04.

Top Countries for Individual Indicators

To arrive at the overall ranking, the study looked at 14 individual factors or “indicators” of a “thoughtful” society. The total score represents a weighted average of all indicators. The 14 “thoughtfulness” indicators fall under three main groups: philanthropy, equality and family. In other words, how “giving” are we with one another, how egalitarian is the society, and how well do we take care of the youngest and oldest among us?

Most Thoughtful Countries - Indicators

The top ranking country for each of the 14 “thoughtfulness” indicators are as follows:

  • Charity: Indonesia
  • Social Security Benefits: France
  • International Donations: USA
  • Public Services Funding: USA
  • Compassion: USA
  • Volunteering: USA
  • Healthcare: Iceland
  • Education: Switzerland
  • Gender Equality: Iceland
  • Minority Equality: Sweden
  • Social Mobility: United Arab Emirates
  • Elderly Support from Family: Saudi Arabia
  • Elderly Support from State: Canada
  • Child Support: Denmark

Of the 14 indicators studied, Canada ranks in the top 10 for charity (8th), international donations (10th), compassion (7th), volunteering (8th), education (4th), minority equality (6th), and elderly support from state (1st). Some indicators are based on hard data, like philanthropic donations as a percentage of gross national income. Others are based on proprietary survey data; the compassion ranking was based on public survey results from the World Giving Index.

Canada does not rank in the top 25 for child support. Our public policies around paid parental leave and rising childcare costs could use some work. MyPostcard based on the “child support” score on the percentage of households receiving child benefits and maternity benefits, the percentage of GDP spent on family support, and proprietary survey data from ILO.

Are They the Most Thoughtful Societies?

As with any of these types of studies and reports, the Most Thoughtful Societies Index is a bit of an imperfect science. It does offer some interesting food for thought, though, just as when we see reports about the “happiest” countries in the world. Or cities that are ranked as the “best” places to live. Do you agree you with the results of this study? Is there anything in particular that surprises you?

Check out the full study report on MyPostcard.com for more detailed information, including how the scores were formulated.