The World Happiness Report out on Wednesday paints a quirky picture of countries across the world by defining the most desired emotion among human beings. Happiness can be relative or absolute, permanent or transient, and carnal or spiritual, but it is one emotion for which many go to great lengths.
The nature of happiness has been a much debated topic among philosophers and social scientists. For a monk, it may be achieving the state of bliss while for an artist it would be perfecting his trade. A businessman may want to be happy with a raised bottomline while a stock trader would do so after an incessant rally at the bourse.
Columbia University’s Earth Institute, however, has other ways of measuring happiness. And the celebrated organisation, headed by the erudite Jeffrey D Sachs, doesn’t come close to the state of one’s mind. It does venture into factors which bring one closer to the state of happiness. Gross Domestic Product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption are used to measure how happy a nation’s citizens are. It is apparent from the report that nothing more than war and strife can take a nation away from happiness. Burundi in Africa is at the bottom of the list followed by Syria, which would have seen the sharpest plunge because of the ravaging insurgency.
Ukraine, where the east has been roiled by a pro-Russian insurgency since 2014, has also fallen into the group of 10 largest happiness declines.
Scandinavia has again trumped other parts of the world in being happy. It is Denmark that laughed its way up the list. Switzerland, politically neutral but always at the centre of attention due to its secretive banking industry, has been overtaken as the happiest nation.
Iceland and Ireland offer the best examples of maintaining happiness in the face of economic crisis due to high degrees of social support, the report says. Ukraine’s ranking has nosedived because of a pro-Russian insurgency since 2014. Afghanistan and six other countries in sub-Saharan Africa — Benin, Rwanda, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania and Madagascar are the least happy of 157 countries. India, the largest democracy finds it hard to keep its 1.2 billion people above the happiness line. It ranks low at 118. The emerging economy with one of the highest growth rates in the world, has been criticised by development economists for the state of its healthcare. Corruption is one area where the second most populous country doesn’t score well.
China is much better at 83 and seems to have scored more due to a better social support in comparison to its southern neighbour.
The countries at the top of the list —Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden — are away from the tropics and have largely cool climates. More achievement motivation of the people in colder climes would have contributed to their ranking.
The World Happiness Report out on Wednesday paints a quirky picture of countries across the world by defining the most desired emotion among human beings. Happiness can be relative or absolute, permanent or transient, and carnal or spiritual, but it is one emotion for which many go to great lengths.
The nature of happiness has been a much debated topic among philosophers and social scientists. For a monk, it may be achieving the state of bliss while for an artist it would be perfecting his trade. A businessman may want to be happy with a raised bottomline while a stock trader would do so after an incessant rally at the bourse.
Columbia University’s Earth Institute, however, has other ways of measuring happiness. And the celebrated organisation, headed by the erudite Jeffrey D Sachs, doesn’t come close to the state of one’s mind. It does venture into factors which bring one closer to the state of happiness. Gross Domestic Product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption are used to measure how happy a nation’s citizens are. It is apparent from the report that nothing more than war and strife can take a nation away from happiness. Burundi in Africa is at the bottom of the list followed by Syria, which would have seen the sharpest plunge because of the ravaging insurgency.
Ukraine, where the east has been roiled by a pro-Russian insurgency since 2014, has also fallen into the group of 10 largest happiness declines.
Scandinavia has again trumped other parts of the world in being happy. It is Denmark that laughed its way up the list. Switzerland, politically neutral but always at the centre of attention due to its secretive banking industry, has been overtaken as the happiest nation.
Iceland and Ireland offer the best examples of maintaining happiness in the face of economic crisis due to high degrees of social support, the report says. Ukraine’s ranking has nosedived because of a pro-Russian insurgency since 2014. Afghanistan and six other countries in sub-Saharan Africa — Benin, Rwanda, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania and Madagascar are the least happy of 157 countries. India, the largest democracy finds it hard to keep its 1.2 billion people above the happiness line. It ranks low at 118. The emerging economy with one of the highest growth rates in the world, has been criticised by development economists for the state of its healthcare. Corruption is one area where the second most populous country doesn’t score well.
China is much better at 83 and seems to have scored more due to a better social support in comparison to its southern neighbour.
The countries at the top of the list —Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden — are away from the tropics and have largely cool climates. More achievement motivation of the people in colder climes would have contributed to their ranking.
