The first UN World Happiness Report was released a few days ago, and the objective of this report is to go away from monetary measures like GNP to a measure that shows the well being of a country’s citizens. They have tried to measure happiness through some subjective questions and the results are pretty interesting.
There are probably no surprises at the top 9 spots which are occupied by Denmark, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, and Australia. I was a bit surprised to see Ireland at number 10 followed by the United States at number 11.
But from then on the results are pretty weird and and it’s hard to understand or explain some of the rankings in there.
For instance, Germany is down at number 30 much below countries like Venezeula, Mexico, Panama and Brazil. Japan is even lower at 44 and slightly worse off than Greece at 42.
Iran is 84, Pakistan is 85, and India is below both at 94, and China doesn’t even make it to the top 100!
Here is the list of the top 100 countries – what do you make of it?
| S.No. | Country |
|---|---|
| 1 | Denmark |
| 2 | Finland |
| 3 | Norway |
| 4 | Netherlands |
| 5 | Canada |
| 6 | Switzerland |
| 7 | Sweden |
| 8 | New Zealand |
| 9 | Australia |
| 10 | Ireland |
| 11 | United States |
| 12 | Costa Rica |
| 13 | Austria |
| 14 | Israel |
| 15 | Belgium |
| 16 | Luxembourg |
| 17 | UAE |
| 18 | UK |
| 19 | Venezuela |
| 20 | Iceland |
| 21 | Panama |
| 22 | Spain |
| 23 | France |
| 24 | Mexico |
| 25 | Brazil |
| 26 | Saudi Arabia |
| 27 | Puerto Rico |
| 28 | Italy |
| 29 | Kuwait |
| 30 | Germany |
| 31 | Qatar |
| 32 | Turkmenistan |
| 33 | Singapore |
| 34 | Belize |
| 35 | Cyprus |
| 36 | Czech Republic |
| 37 | Guatemala |
| 38 | Trinidad & Tobago |
| 39 | Argentina |
| 40 | Jamaica |
| 41 | Colombia |
| 42 | Greece |
| 43 | Chile |
| 44 | Japan |
| 45 | Guyana |
| 46 | Taiwan |
| 47 | Malta |
| 48 | El Salvador |
| 49 | Slovenia |
| 50 | Uruguay |
| 51 | Malaysia |
| 52 | Thailand |
| 53 | Poland |
| 54 | Jordan |
| 55 | Slovakia |
| 56 | South Korea |
| 57 | Bolivia |
| 58 | Croatia |
| 59 | Kazakhstan |
| 60 | Lithuania |
| 61 | Bahrain |
| 62 | Belarus |
| 63 | Hondarus |
| 64 | Mauritius |
| 65 | Vietnam |
| 66 | Ecuador |
| 67 | Hong Kong |
| 68 | Kosovo |
| 69 | Cuba |
| 70 | Paraguay |
| 71 | Algeria |
| 72 | Estonia |
| 73 | Portugal |
| 74 | Myanmar |
| 75 | Moldova |
| 76 | Russia |
| 77 | Peru |
| 78 | Turkey |
| 79 | Uzbekistan |
| 80 | Romania |
| 81 | Libya |
| 82 | Laos |
| 83 | Indonesia |
| 84 | Iran |
| 85 | Pakistan |
| 86 | Montenegro |
| 87 | Tunisia |
| 88 | Albania |
| 89 | Nicaragua |
| 90 | South Africa |
| 91 | Ukraine |
| 92 | Lebanon |
| 93 | Dominican Republic |
| 94 | India |
| 95 | Djibouti |
| 96 | Hungary |
| 97 | Namibia |
| 98 | Iraq |
| 99 | Bosnia |
| 100 | Nigeria |
i didn’t see Bhutan in this list. it was the first nation to coin the term ‘gross national happiness’ index.
the methodology followed to rate countries on this happiness scale would have been illuminating. in the absence of this, any such list rating happiness, beauty, corruption, etc (all these ‘lie’ in the eye of the beholder) are at best subjective and only have entertainment value or worse are falsehoods imposed upon the general public.
someone once declared to me that his doctor was rated 4th best in the world and the 2nd best in Asia!
these ‘lists’ deserves the same treatment one gives to daily forecasts published in newspapers. enjoy them and move on with your life.
Surprised to see countries like Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica up there……
They could have also had Cuba……..
I feel India being at 94 is an averaging-out effect. If you just separate out Indian middle class, it would place much higher in the list..
I would have thought India would rate atleast higher than Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Lebanon. I have been to few of these places and I know how difficult it is to live there.
So this surpirises me a bit !
My thoughts exactly!