Yesterday we published an article about The Economist’s list of places to be born, and Egypt of course ranked poorly. In a rare moment of serendipity, Business Insider yesterday posted an article titled “The 21 Most Miserable Countries in the World,” and, surprise surprise! Egypt was ranked as the fifth most miserable country in the world based on a misery index score of 23.9%. The misery index is a measurement reached by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It may not necessarily be the most scientific of all measurements, but it certainly paints a worrying picture.

Although the current government has been attempting to address the current inflation, unemployment still remains a big issue, sitting at around 13% in recent times. The misery index has received criticism for implying that inflation causes the same amount of misery as unemployment, when studies have shown that unemployment has a much larger effect on happiness, but this really just means that the misery index would be higher if it was adjusted to reflect this.