Society Who is most generous in Europe?

LeBrok

Elite member
Messages
10,261
Reaction score
1,617
Points
0
Location
Calgary
Ethnic group
Citizen of the world
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b Z2109
mtDNA haplogroup
H1c
CAF, Charities Aid Foundation issued 5th annual report about generosity of nations. I wasn't able to post the whole ranking table, so I made a short list.
Here is a full report: https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/WorldGivingIndex2013_1374AWEB.pdf
Countries are judged according to 3 criterias; percentage of people giving money to charities, how many volunteer hours were giving to charities, and percentage of people helping strangers.


  1. Ireland points 57
  2. Uk 57
  3. Netherlands 54
  4. Norway 48
  5. Malta 47
  6. Switzerland 47
  7. Austria 45
  8. Iceland 44
  9. Italy 44
  10. Germany 43
  11. Cyprus 43
  12. Denmark 42
  13. Luxembourg 42
  14. Finland 40
  15. Sweden 39
  16. Slovenia 38
  17. Belgium 33
  18. Spain 33
  19. Portugal 29
  20. France 28
  21. Hungary 28
  22. Kosovo 27
  23. Poland 27
  24. Belarus 25
  25. Estonia 25
  26. Latvia 25
  27. Slovakia 25
  28. Ukraine 24
  29. Czech 23
  30. Romania 23
  31. Bosnia 21
  32. Armenia 21
  33. Georgia 20
  34. Bulgaria 19
  35. Macedonia 19
  36. Lithuania 19
  37. Russia 19
  38. Serbia 19
  39. Albania 16
  40. croatia 16
  41. Greece 13

Congratulation Ireland! And what is about Greeks not willing to share, even with themselves?
 
I don't think they have the means to share right now.
 
I don't think they have the means to share right now.
Sharing money is only one third of the score. They don't even take amount of money under consideration either. You give one drachma or 100 dollars to one charity gives the same score. Other one third is about donating time as volunteer. Last one third of a score is about helping strangers in any way you can.
That's the reason Ireland is the first, but also Malta and Cyprus scored high too. Higher than Sweden and Germany. In global ranking poor Myanmar is in second place with Canada.
 
Yeah; poor Myanmar
 
Interesting that there is relatively little correlation between generosity and GDP per capita, although richer countries tend to be in the top. It's surprising to see the huge gap between countries that are supposedly close culturally and ethnically, like Cyprus and Greece, or Kosovo and Albania.
 
I think Germany is the most generous. I don't know about charities but it contributes threefold more to EU budget than UK, even though Germany is not threefold bigger.
 
This is wrong, it will inflate the generosity of countries with public charities and other official means of giving. In poorer countries charity is done privately and goes undocumented.
 
It is wrong if you don't know all the facts and base your opinion solely on assumptions. Here is the world statistics:

United States of America 1 61 77 62 45
Canada 2 58 64 68 42
Myanmar 2 58 46 85 43
New Zealand 2 58 67 67 40
Ireland 5 57 64 70 37
United Kingdom 6 57 65 76 29
Australia 7 55 64 67 34
Netherlands 8 54 57 69 37
Qatar 9 51 73 60 19
Sri Lanka 10 48 54 45 46
Norway 11 48 53 56 35
Malta 12 47 46 72 24
Switzerland 12 47 54 56 32
State of Libya 14 46 72 29 37
Austria 15 45 56 52 28
Philippines 16 45 60 31 43
Hong Kong 17 44 55 63 15
Iceland 17 44 45 63 25
Indonesia 17 44 40 63 30
Nigeria 20 44 66 30 36
https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/WorldGivingIndex2013_1374AWEB.pdf

As you can see poor Myanmar is in second place with Canada, also poor Sri Lanka, Libya, Indonesia. Even poor Nigeria with 44 points is more generous than rich Germany, Sweden or Belgium.
 
It is wrong if you don't know all the facts and base your opinion solely on assumptions. Here is the world statistics:

Really! Well, look at your list and tell me what percentage of it is first-world countries.
 
Really! Well, look at your list and tell me what percentage of it is first-world countries.
Because they are rich have more money or things to give. But this is not your original argument. Your argument was that poor countries can't compete because
In poorer countries charity is done privately and goes undocumented.
I showed you that they can, didn't I? You were not arguing that poor have less to give, you were arguing that they give privately and is undocumented. Now you changed your argument. How can I argue with you?
To help poor compete, giving to charities is not about how much money, it is only how often is the donation. Doesn't matter if it is one cent or a million dollars.

And if you spend more time reading the statistics you would have noticed that one of three columns is about helping a stranger, not about money at all. Would you argue that rich countries help strangers more or less? And where the helping to stranger is registered, in public charities?
 
Because they are rich have more money or things to give. But this is not your original argument. Your argument was that poor countries can't compete because I showed you that they can, didn't I? You were not arguing that poor have less to give, you were arguing that they give privately and is undocumented. Now you changed your argument. How can I argue with you?
I did not change my argument, you did, lol. My argument was and remains that this study is skewed because in first-world countries charity is more easily documented.
 
I did not change my argument, you did, lol. My argument was and remains that this study is skewed because in first-world countries charity is more easily documented.
So what relevance your second post has to your first argument? The amount of rich countries on the list is no proof that their charitable giving was documented, or if documents were needed during data collection by surveying company. Do you know if donations were self reported, or document of donation was needed?
 
1) Donating to charity - Charities also don't exist, there is no red cross ringing a bell, and there are less people soliciting donations.

2) Helping a stranger - in many of the countries people will seldom see any strangers or have the ability to help strangers. This is just an immeasurable idea, sinces strangers don't exist and everyone is part of the ccommunity.

3) Donating time - it seems as if a lot of these indexes revolve around helping strangers rather than helping neighbors. I'm sure you will find that in the countries that score low people donate their time to help neighbors, rather than help strangers, because they simply would have a much more difficult life if the did not help each other. It seems as if this study omits the gratitude of helping thy neighbor and the time you help him because he or she isn't a stranger.

4) Many of these communities are primarily agricultural socities that continue to farm and live off the land. In such a society there would be no income to donate, thus scoring poorly even if you share food etc.

5) Do you really believe that if you were stranded in Nigeria that you would be safer or receive less help than if you were stranded in Croatia? That seems absurd.

It does seem that the study is flawed and absurd.
 
1) Donating to charity - Charities also don't exist, there is no red cross ringing a bell, and there are less people soliciting donations.

2) Helping a stranger - in many of the countries people will seldom see any strangers or have the ability to help strangers. This is just an immeasurable idea, sinces strangers don't exist and everyone is part of the ccommunity.

3) Donating time - it seems as if a lot of these indexes revolve around helping strangers rather than helping neighbors. I'm sure you will find that in the countries that score low people donate their time to help neighbors, rather than help strangers, because they simply would have a much more difficult life if the did not help each other. It seems as if this study omits the gratitude of helping thy neighbor and the time you help him because he or she isn't a stranger.

4) Many of these communities are primarily agricultural socities that continue to farm and live off the land. In such a society there would be no income to donate, thus scoring poorly even if you share food etc.

5) Do you really believe that if you were stranded in Nigeria that you would be safer or receive less help than if you were stranded in Croatia? That seems absurd.

It does seem that the study is flawed and absurd.

Did you look at how they defined stranger or donation at their website? Maybe there is an easy way out off your dilemmas?

5) Do you really believe that if you were stranded in Nigeria that you would be safer or receive less help than if you were stranded in Croatia? That seems absurd.
Safety doesn't apply to any of these criterias, so cannot be used as an argument. For receiving help argument, be free to make an experiment. Get stranded in both countries and share your experience with us. Otherwise this survey has more scientific value than your subjective opinion.
I wonder why Croatian is criticizing these statistics?
 
It is wrong if you don't know all the facts and base your opinion solely on assumptions. Here is the world statistics:

United States of America 1 61 77 62 45
Canada 2 58 64 68 42
Myanmar 2 58 46 85 43
New Zealand 2 58 67 67 40
Ireland 5 57 64 70 37
United Kingdom 6 57 65 76 29
Australia 7 55 64 67 34
Netherlands 8 54 57 69 37
Qatar 9 51 73 60 19
Sri Lanka 10 48 54 45 46
Norway 11 48 53 56 35
Malta 12 47 46 72 24
Switzerland 12 47 54 56 32
State of Libya 14 46 72 29 37
Austria 15 45 56 52 28
Philippines 16 45 60 31 43
Hong Kong 17 44 55 63 15
Iceland 17 44 45 63 25
Indonesia 17 44 40 63 30
Nigeria 20 44 66 30 36
https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/WorldGivingIndex2013_1374AWEB.pdf

As you can see poor Myanmar is in second place with Canada, also poor Sri Lanka, Libya, Indonesia. Even poor Nigeria with 44 points is more generous than rich Germany, Sweden or Belgium.

In order to better understand charities, one should better understand countries’ tax system.

How much Americans or Canadians pay in taxes? In Germany normal tax rate is around 40%.
Why in America I can choose between paying taxes and donating to charity, while in Germany you can pay one billion into the charity but you still have to pay your share of taxes?
Some countries encourage and promote paying to charities more than others.
For example, in North America if I bought Toronto Maple Leaves club and invested in that by paying million dollar wages to players, I would probably be considered as doing charity and definitely would be exempted from significant amount of taxes on my profit gains or business revenues. In Germany if you’re Christian, you pay taxes for that on top of your normal tax rate. The difference here is that in North America owning a profitable club is being considered a charity and in Germany paying taxes to your local church does not render charity name.
The third, we have to look at whether one pays taxes at all. For example in some countries maybe there is no such thing as paying taxes at all. Don’t want to pinpoint but in your list there are such. Then it would be very easy to pay significant amount to charity.
So, I identified a few key questions here that should be answered before we could announce about someone’s contributions to charity.

  1. What is tax system of a country. Does it encourage to contribute towards charities by allowing to pay less taxes?
  2. What is exactly charity called? ( Owning profitable Toronto Maple Leaves club and paying taxes to your local non-profitable church).
  3. Do you have to pay taxes in your country at all?
  4. Understanding private charities and state’s run charities. Even though Americans as citizens are probably the biggest charities’ contributors but as a state America would sit pretty low in any chart.:)
 
In order to better understand charities, one should better understand countries’ tax system.

How much Americans or Canadians pay in taxes? In Germany normal tax rate is around 40%.
Why in America I can choose between paying taxes and donating to charity, while in Germany you can pay one billion into the charity but you still have to pay your share of taxes?
Some countries encourage and promote paying to charities more than others.
For example, in North America if I bought Toronto Maple Leaves club and invested in that by paying million dollar wages to players, I would probably be considered as doing charity and definitely would be exempted from significant amount of taxes on my profit gains or business revenues. In Germany if you’re Christian, you pay taxes for that on top of your normal tax rate. The difference here is that in North America owning a profitable club is being considered a charity and in Germany paying taxes to your local church does not render charity name.
The third, we have to look at whether one pays taxes at all. For example in some countries maybe there is no such thing as paying taxes at all. Don’t want to pinpoint but in your list there are such. Then it would be very easy to pay significant amount to charity.
So, I identified a few key questions here that should be answered before we could announce about someone’s contributions to charity.

  1. What is tax system of a country. Does it encourage to contribute towards charities by allowing to pay less taxes?
  2. What is exactly charity called? ( Owning profitable Toronto Maple Leaves club and paying taxes to your local non-profitable church).
  3. Do you have to pay taxes in your country at all?
  4. Understanding private charities and state’s run charities. Even though Americans as citizens are probably the biggest charities’ contributors but as a state America would sit pretty low in any chart.:)

Canada and the U.S. are very different countries with very different laws. I don't know how professional sports teams are treated under American tax law, but here in Canada they're considered a business, and the owner has to pay taxes on the profits, the same as for any other business, although I imagine the costs that are deductible in calculating net income are different than for a steel mill, for example. As for charitable donations, here in Canada you do get a tax deduction for donations if those donations form a large enough part of your net income - there's a formula for calculating how much of a tax break you get. And that deduction does encourage people to be more generous with their donations. I'm pretty sure Americans also get some kind of tax deduction for charitable donations, but I don't know how their system works. As for tax rates, here in Canada it depends on the level of income - the tax rate is progressive as income increases, but not as much as it used to be. Apparently the American tax system is quite different from ours, with the rich not paying much tax at all.
 
Canada and the U.S. are very different countries with very different laws.
I think this is your wish only. Canada is more similar to US than, to Nigeria, China or even most European countries. On global scale they might be the most similar ones.
Apparently the American tax system is quite different from ours, with the rich not paying much tax at all.
I know you love criticizing US, but at least get some statistics to be more factual.
130311153403-tax-share-chart-620xa.jpg

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/

As you see the top 10 percent earners pay 70% of all US income taxes, and remaining 90% pay 30%. The top 10 tax bracket went from 28% to 40% from 1986 to 2010.
Conversely bottom 50% of earners paid less than 2% of all income tax. When you include people on social support with no income then you'll get half of US population paying no income tax at all. How does this go for justice and equality?
Shouldn't half of the earners be included as charitable group? After all they are the ones who pay for all government services for the other 50%.
 
Last edited:
Interesting that there is relatively little correlation between generosity and GDP per capita, although richer countries tend to be in the top. It's surprising to see the huge gap between countries that are supposedly close culturally and ethnically, like Cyprus and Greece, or Kosovo and Albania.
Sad but true! Albanians in Albania went a period of dehumanisation under comunist regime. So the trend continues. Everyone for himself, God for evrybody. Kosovo albanians being under Serb assault for a centuary needed one another to servive. So the trend continues. Help when you can. I tend to disagree with Greek position. I have met greeks. They are generous. I see that as an aberration.
 
I think this is your wish only. Canada is more similar to US than, to Nigeria, China or even most European countries. On global scale they might be the most similar ones.
I know you love criticizing US, but at least get some statistics to be more factual.
130311153403-tax-share-chart-620xa.jpg

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/

As you see the top 10 percent earners pay 70% of all US income taxes, and remaining 90% pay 30%. The top 10 tax bracket went from 28% to 40% from 1986 to 2010.
Conversely bottom 50% of earners paid less than 2% of all income tax. When you include people on social support with no income then you'll get half of US population paying no income tax at all. How does this go for justice and equality?
Shouldn't half of the earners be included as charitable group? After all they are the ones who pay for all government services for the other 50%.

The American tax system has a number of advantages for the rich that are not found here in Canada, such as the "earned interest" provision, but that sort of thing mainly affects the top one-tenth of 1%. And the fact that the top 10% of the U.S. population pays about 70% of income taxes while "only" earning about 50% of the total income does not tell the whole story, since poor people pay sales tax and the working poor pay a lot in payroll taxes - the payroll taxes are much higher in the U.S. than in Canada. I think the important story is that the top 400 people in the U.S. make more money than the bottom 50% - although Canada probably has too much income inequity, it's not nearly as extreme as that. But you and I are not ever going to agree on political or economic issues, so there's not too much point in us debating these subjects.

On a different topic, I do think that those people suggesting that the methodology for creating the chart of who's the most charitable could be flawed because of cultural differences in different countries. Nevertheless, I do find that chart interesting, particularly the suggestion that generosity does not have too much to do with income levels.
 
The American tax system has a number of advantages for the rich that are not found here in Canada, such as the "earned interest" provision, but that sort of thing mainly affects the top one-tenth of 1%. And the fact that the top 10% of the U.S. population pays about 70% of income taxes while "only" earning about 50% of the total income does not tell the whole story, since poor people pay sales tax and the working poor pay a lot in payroll taxes - the payroll taxes are much higher in the U.S. than in Canada. I think the important story is that the top 400 people in the U.S. make more money than the bottom 50% - although Canada probably has too much income inequity, it's not nearly as extreme as that. But you and I are not ever going to agree on political or economic issues, so there's not too much point in us debating these subjects.
I don't mind you criticizing anything at all. I just found too much exaggeration and one-sidedness not to react. Rich do pay a lot of income tax and a lot of sale tax, but whether it is enough or still too little is another discussion. ;)


On a different topic, I do think that those people suggesting that the methodology for creating the chart of who's the most charitable could be flawed because of cultural differences in different countries. Nevertheless, I do find that chart interesting, particularly the suggestion that generosity does not have too much to do with income levels.
Surely we'll never find 100% objective tool to measure full potential of human generosity with pan-cultural adjustment. But I think these guys did tremendous job to level playing field for all.
 

This thread has been viewed 25573 times.

Back
Top