People who have been professionally active for many of years rarely think about how much money they have earned throughout those years. That is why in this study, Picodi.com analysts calculated how many years of work are required to make 1 million dollars in different countries while earning an average wage.
102 countries were included in our ranking. If we sum up all the money an average employee takes home, citizens of Switzerland will earn their first million the fastest – 14 years and 3 months. The second place belongs to Singapore with 16 years and 11 months. Citizens of Luxembourg have to work 5 months more – 17 years and 4 months. The USA and Iceland close out the top 5 with 19 years and 10 months and 20 years and 11 months respectively.
In this ranking, New Zealand ranked 13th – an employee earning the average wage will need 28 years and 4 months to make a million dollars. With this result, New Zealand overtook countries such as the UK (by a year), Japan (by 5 years) and Italy (by 22 years). On the other hand, Australian workers will earn their first million 4 years faster (8th – 24 years and 3 months), and there is a 12-year gap between New Zealand and Singapore (2nd – 16 years and 11 months).
A million dollars is worth over 500 years of work in Nigeria (519 years and 1 month), Uganda (523 years and 3 months), Egypt (603 years and 6 months) and Pakistan (621 years and 3 months).
Methodology and sources
The average monthly net wage data comes from Numbeo, where thousands of users worldwide monitor wages through monthly questionnaires. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate data from Google Finance for March 2023.
All data used in this study can be found in a chart here (↓.pdf). https://cdn.picodi.com/nz/files/blog/2023/04/Time-needed-to-earn-1-million-dollars.pdf and for more, see: https://www.picodi.com/nz/bargain-hunting/become-a-millionaire
