According to a publication by Bloomberg Mongolia is ranked as the 4th most stressed country based on the stressfulness of the living environment. Nigeria came at the top of the table ranking as the most stressful country to live in with a score of 70.1, while Norway places in 74th as the least stressful with a score of 5.4. Mongolia scored 55.4 in the test, missing 5th place by only 0.3 percent as Guatemala scored 55.1 percent.

The measurements used included homicide rates, GDP per capita, income equality, corruption perception, unemployment, urban air pollution and life expectancy.  Income inequality was measured by the Gini Index, where a score of 0 represents perfect equality and 100 perfect inequality. Mongolia scores 36.5 compared to for example South Korea that scores 41.9 and the US 45. Corruption perception refers to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which scores countries on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the most corrupt. Mongolia’s corruption perception is ranked at 36 where as the US comes in with 73. Urban outdoor air pollution is the annual mean concentration of fine particles smaller than 10 microns, measured in micrograms per cubic meter. Mongolia is recorded as having 279.0 micrograms per cubic meter compared to China’s 98 and the US 18.2.

Countries were allotted points for each variable based on their relative position in the category’s ranking. The country with the least-stressful measure for each variable received 0 points, while the country with the highest stress level received 100 points. All other countries were scored on a percentile basis depending on their position between the two extremes. Points for the seven variables were averaged for a final score from 0 to 100. A higher score indicated a more stressful living environment.