OHMYGOSSIP — Sweden remains among the top five countries in the world to be a mother, according to Save the Children’s annual global scorecard, with Stockholm singled out for tackling inequality among women.
Based on five indicators related to maternal health, education, income levels and the status of women, Sweden has been ranked 5th in the world in Save the Children’s 16th annual Mothers’ Index, which rates a total of 179 countries.
Scandinavian countries have consistently taken the top spots in the index, with Norway this year beating Finland which came first last year. Sweden dropped below Iceland and Denmark after ranking third in 2014.
Somalia was ranked the worst place, just below the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Meanwhile the US dropped to the 33rd spot, while the UK only managed 24th place.
Sweden scored highly because of its gender balance in parliament and maternal death rates, which are lower than in neighbouring Denmark and in Iceland. Only one mother in 13,600 is at risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth in Sweden. By contrast American women have a one in 1,800 risk of maternal death, the worst level of risk of any developed country in the world.
But all the other Nordic nations were found to offer more expected years of formal schooling and demonstrated slightly lower death rates for under fives, pushing their overall scores above Sweden’s.