Ireland ranks 18th among 174 countries surveyed by the UN for its annual Human Development Report.
The report, produced every year since 1990, lists countries in terms of life expectancy, education and income. However, the latest year on which the figures are based is 1998.
Ireland is ranked behind Canada, the US and most other European countries, apart from Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Greece, and former Eastern bloc states.
Nonetheless, Ireland scores highly in terms of economic growth, with a 4.4 per cent average annual rate of change in per capita GDP since 1975. This compares with 2.9 per cent in the US, 1.9 per cent in the UK and 1.2 per cent in Germany.
Ireland's life expectancy at birth is 76.4. The highest is Japan's, at 80 followed by Canada's, which is 79. However, in terms of doctors per 100,000 people, this state ranks behind most other developed countries, with 167.
This is also reflected in the proportion of GDP spent on health. In Ireland it is 4.9 per cent, compared with 8.3 in Germany and 6.8 in Belgium.
Our expenditure on education, at 6 per cent of GDP, is more in line with European averages, which range between 3.1 per cent in Greece and 7.4 per cent in Norway. The US spends 5.4 per cent, while Canada spends 6.9.
This state lags behind most other developed countries in terms of information flow as measured by various forms of telecommunications. For example, in 1998 it had only 15.17 Internet hosts per 1,000 people, compared with 112.27 in the US and 89.83 in Iceland. However, that figure has risen since then.
Under the heading "personal distress" Ireland is recorded as having a male suicide rate of 17.9 per 100,000, considerably higher than the UK at 11, but lower than most other European countries.
The rate of births to mothers under 20 is higher, at 5.5 per cent, than most developed countries, with the exception of the US.