Rainy Melbourne
Women cover themselves from the rain as they walk through the paddock area before the first practice session of the Australian F1 Grand Prix at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne March 16, 2012. Reuters/Daniel Munoz

Australia has been hailed as the world’s safest country for a woman and among the best-performing wealth markets. Wealth here has grown by 83 percent over ten years.

This is according to the 2018 Global Wealth Migration Review, an analysis by consultancy New World Wealth. The report looks at the movement of high net worth individuals (HNWI) globally.

Malta and Iceland follow Australia in the list of safest countries for a woman in 2017. New Zealand, Canada, Poland, Monaco, Israel, United States and South Korea are also included in the top ten. Meanwhile, the world’s least safe countries for a woman in the past year include Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Syria.

The report based its rankings on the percentage of every country’s population of women that has been a victim of serious crimes over the past year. It noted how most nations in the top ten list are also famous destinations for migrating HNWIs (high net worth individuals).

Another thing that most of the countries have in common is a strong wealth growth experienced over the past one to two decades. The safest countries in every region are the following:

  • Europe: Malta, Poland, Monaco, Iceland
  • Asia Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea
  • Middle East: Israel, UAE
  • Africa: Mauritius, Botswana, Namibia
  • Americas: USA, Canada

“We expect emerging markets with good woman safety levels to be some of the world’s top performers in terms of wealth growth over the next 10 years,” the report states. Countries like Mauritius and Sri Lanka, for example, have good levels of female safety. Both countries are expected to do very well in terms of wealth growth.

New World Wealth is a South Africa-based global market research group. It specialises in ratings, surveys, country reports and wealth statistics.

World's Best Countries

Switzerland and Canada secured spots as top two nations in the list of the World's Best Countries. The US and Britain have fallen down the list. America fell one place to the eight spot, after Sweden and Australia, amid the world's perceptions of the US becoming less progressive.

Meanwhile, a US News survey has found that Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Angela Merkel were viewed as the most respected in the world. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin got the highest disapproval ratings.

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