Quality of life comparison

compared to

If you lived in Australia instead of Sweden, you would:

Health

be 40.8% more likely to be obese

In Sweden, 20.6% of adults are obese as of 2016. In Australia, that number is 29.0% of people as of 2016.

Economy

be 51.6% less likely to be unemployed

In Sweden, 7.6% of adults are unemployed as of 2023. In Australia, that number is 3.7% as of 2023.

be 16.8% less likely to live below the poverty line

In Sweden, 16.1% live below the poverty line as of 2022. In Australia, however, that number is 13.4% as of 2020.

pay a 21.2% lower top tax rate

Sweden has a top tax rate of 57.1% as of 2016. In Australia, the top tax rate is 45.0% as of 2016.

Life

be 40.0% less likely to die during childbirth

In Sweden, approximately 5.0 women per 100,000 births die during labor as of 2020. In Australia, 3.0 women do as of 2020.

have 14.0% more children

In Sweden, there are approximately 10.7 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024. In Australia, there are 12.2 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024.

be 30.9% more likely to die during infancy

In Sweden, approximately 2.3 children (per 1,000 live births) die before they reach the age of one as of 2022. In Australia, on the other hand, 3.0 children do as of 2022.

Expenditures

spend 15.3% less on education

Sweden spends 7.2% of its total GDP on education as of 2020. Australia spends 6.1% of total GDP on education as of 2020.

Geography

see 8.0 times more coastline

Sweden has a total of 3,218 km of coastline. In Australia, that number is 25,760 km.

The statistics above were calculated using the following data sources: The World Factbook, Australian Taxation Office, Skatteverket.

Australia: At a glance

Australia is a sovereign country in Australia-Oceania, with a total land area of approximately 7,682,300 sq km. Prehistoric settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia at least 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession of the east coast in the name of Great Britain (all of Australia was claimed as British territory in 1829 with the creation of the colony of Western Australia). Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country took advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the Allied effort in World Wars I and II. In recent decades, Australia has become an internationally competitive, advanced market economy due in large part to economic reforms adopted in the 1980s and its location in one of the fastest growing regions of the world economy. Long-term concerns include aging of the population, pressure on infrastructure, and environmental issues such as floods, droughts, and bushfires. Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, making it particularly vulnerable to the challenges of climate change. Australia is home to 10 per cent of the world's biodiversity, and a great number of its flora and fauna exist nowhere else in the world. In January 2013, Australia assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-14 term.
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How big is Australia compared to Sweden? See an in-depth size comparison.

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