Scores Tied to ‘Human Suffering’ : U.S. Rated Fifth in Survey of Most ‘Livable’ Nations

Switzerland is the most comfortable nation in which to live, the United States is in fifth place and Mozambique and Angola are the least desirable of 130 countries surveyed by the Population Crisis Committee.

The committee’s report, issued here Sunday, ranked the nations according to a “human suffering index” designed to establish a relationship between rapid population growth and problems that are emerging for many fast-growing parts of the Third World.

The Washington-based committee, which promotes family planning, said that world population will reach 5 billion later this year, and will rise by another billion by 1998 if present trends continue.

The committee used official statistics to develop an index from the sum of 10 factors that were rated on a scale of zero to 10 for impact on human suffering. By this system, advanced industrial nations in Western Europe, North America and Japan had low scores, indicating few impediments to “livability.” The higher scores, reflecting hunger, disease and economic distress, were concentrated in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia.

Scale of Suffering

Sharon Camp, editor of the index, said that much of the suffering it quantifies is due to “population pressures combined with inadequate development efforts.”

“If we provide family planning, health, education and other development help now,” she said, “we immediately ease the suffering of millions in the Third World--but, just as important, we make an investment in our own future.”

J. Joseph Speidel, technical editor of the index, said that 30 of the 31 countries with the highest levels of human suffering had annual population growth rates of between 4.2% and 2%. At such rates, he said, their populations will double every 17 to 35 years.

The study found that, at these rates of expansion, the world’s developing nations will need 540 million new jobs to support their mounting populations by the year 2000. By that year, the report said, eight of the 10 largest cities on earth will be in the Third World.

In a telephone interview, Speidel faulted the Reagan Administration as having failed to give adequate support to family planning programs in the Third World, or to recognize the benefits they can bring to the United States.

Decline of Foreign Aid

Speidel said that U.S. aid has fallen from $290 million in fiscal 1985 to $214 million in this (1987) fiscal year. He attributed the decline to a combination of White House indifference, lack of public support for foreign aid programs and the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law.

Family Planning Spending

Excluding China, which he estimated to be spending about $1 billion yearly to limit family size, Speidel said that worldwide spending on family planning now totals about $1.5 billion yearly, of which about $500 million comes from foreign aid programs of the industrialized world.

“Ideally, spending should come to $5 or $6 billion a year,” Speidel said. “That’s about $1 a year per person for all the countries that should be covered. It’s not much, compared with military spending.”

Statistics factored into the suffering index were gross national product per capita of each country, the average annual inflation rate, average annual growth of the labor force, average annual growth of urban population, the infant mortality rate, the caloric value of daily, per capita nutrition, access to clean drinking water, energy consumption and literacy. The 10th factor undertook to measure the extent of individual freedom in each country.

The report gave Switzerland perfect scores in all categories except energy consumption, and gave it an overall rating of 4. Behind it were West Germany, with a score of 5, Luxembourg 6, the Netherlands 7 and the United States 8. Canada, Austria and Denmark all were rated 9. Japan scored 11, the United Kingdom 12 and France 14.

U.S. Inflation Faulted

The U.S. score was diminished for its handling of inflation, for having more than minimal growth of its labor force and urban population and for an infant mortality rate averaging between 10 and 20 deaths per 1,000 live births (the rate in 15 other countries was nine or less).

Seventy-four countries were scored at 50 or higher. Mozambique rated a 95, Angola 91 and Afghanistan 88. Fifteen African states scored above 80, as did Nepal, Cambodia and Bhutan. China scored 50 and India got 61.

Haiti, the poorest state in Latin America, was rated 74. Most Western Hemisphere countries fell somewhere between Nicaragua, at 67, and Trinidad and Tobago at 21. Brazil scored 50, Mexico 47, Chile 46, Argentina 38 and Cuba 31.