1. Finland, 7.821
2. Denmark, 7.636
3. Iceland, 7.557
16. United States, 6.977
23. Costa Rica, 7.257
26. Taiwan, 6.512
54. Japan, 6.039
59. Korea, 5.395
72. China, 45,585
81. Hong Kong, 5.425
144. Zimbabwe, 2.995
145. Lebanon, 2.955
146. Afghanistan, 2.404
Can you put a number on happiness? The United Nations is trying. The 10th edition of its “World Happiness Report,” out last March, ranks 146 countries and territories by a four-digit “happiness” score. This is a number drawn from annual polling by the Gallup organization on immediate emotions (“did you smile or laugh yesterday?”; “are you anxious or worried?”, etc.) plus longer-term assessments of satisfaction with life. Accepting a lot of uncertainty* in such matters, a look at the survey results on their own and against some more easily measured things:
Happiest: The happiest people in the Report’s list live in northern Europe. Finns are at the very top with a score of “7.821,” followed closely by Danes, Icelanders, Swiss, and Dutch. All of the 20 happiest countries are wealthy democracies, including Australia and New Zealand, Israel, Canada and the U.S. (in 16th, just below “7”), the U.K., France, Germany, Belgium, and Czechia.
Least happy countries: The lowest numbers are those assigned to least-developed and war-torn or autocratic countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Three countries get happiness numbers below “3.000”: Afghanistan, whose 2.404 is the lowest in the Report, with Lebanon 145th and Zimbabwe 144th occupying the next two notches up. Eight countries fall between “3.000” and “4.000,” with Rwanda, Botswana and Lesotho occupying the next spots. India turns up at 136th, with a 3.777, making it the least-happy democracy in the Report’s list.
Regional exceptions: The five East Asian polities in the list seem glummer than one would predict by income alone. Within this group, Taiwanese are clearly the “happiest” and Hong Kong people least, while Japanese and Koreans should probably cheer up.** Latin American democracies, by contrast, punch well above their per-capita-income weight for happiness: Costa Rica, which ranks 67th in the world for Gross National Income per capita, places 23rd in the Report’s happiness table; likewise, but on a larger scale, Brazil ranks 87th for per capita income but 38th for happiness.
A couple of thoughts here:
The top end of the Report’s rankings looks a lot like the top ends of three other indexes. One is the World Bank’s annual “GNI per capita” list, where Switzerland is 2nd (behind Bermuda, not included in the Happiness Report), Norway 3rd, and the U.S. 7th. Another, Freedom House’s “Global Freedom” index, puts Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada at the top. And Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index” likewise has Denmark first, Finland second, and New Zealand third. On the other hand, the happiest-countries list does not much resemble a list of countries with especially equal incomes. In the World Bank’s Gini Index database, the five most “income-equal” countries are all Central and Eastern European countries — Slovakia, Belarus, Slovenia, Armenia, and Czechia — which spanning the range from “wealthy liberal democracy” at the western Prague end, which ranks 18th for happiness, to “impoverished dictatorship” in Minsk in the east in.
Likewise at the bottom of the list, poverty, autocracy, and corruption appear to be unsurprisingly strong generators of unhappiness, though the strongest correlation seeming to be with poverty. The 11 countries with happiness numbers below “4.000” include 7 least-developed countries, only three rated by Freedom House as “Not Free.” Again income inequality seems at least less powerful than these; the World Bank’s least equal economies as measured by Gini are a mix of southern African states with relatively low U.N. happiness scores, and Latin American countries with relatively high ones.
* For example, even if the theory of happiness ranking works, are surveys reliable in authoritarian or very rural and least-developed countries? Does a given question take on a new emotional resonance when translated into a different language? Etc.
** Asia-wide, the “South Asian” region generally comes off as very down — Pakistan 121st, Sri Lanka 127th, India 137th, while ASEAN members vary from 27th-place Singapore through the Philippines and Thailand at 60 and 61, to Burma/Myanmar at 126.
Rankings:
The UN’s 2022 World Happiness Report, with figures for 2021.
The World Bank’s ranking of countries by GNI per capita in 2021.
Freedom House’s Democracy Index.
The World Bank’s Gini Index table.
A great debate:
Launching the Report series ten years ago, survey co-editor Jeffrey Sachs (a Columbia U. professor) draws an entirely different conclusion from the data than those suggested by GNI, corruption perceptions, or democracy indexes. Summoning Aristotle, medieval Church scholastics, and Buddhist ethics, Dr. Sachs argues that wealth and consumption cannot bring happiness. Noting as a key example that the U.S., despite a near-top per capita income, ranked a lame 17th for happiness, Dr. Sachs berates Americans for shopaholic-ism, TV-watching, snacking and drinking too much, shopaholic-ism, and general lack of perspective:
Some data challenges come up right away here — tobacco use has been dropping steadily for two generations, happiness stars Australia, Ireland, and Finland join Singaporeans as the world’s most enthusiastic gamblers; and U.S. household debt/income ratios are well below the levels of the 1980s and 1990s. And it’s not actually clear that ancient Aristotle-type sages convinced many of their listeners. (See for example, the lifestyle of the real-life Aristotle’s star pupil Alexander.) As a wry classical counterpoint, turn to Chinese history pioneer Sima Qian (Western Han, c. 90 BC) for a rebuttal of Sachs’ “to be happy, you must stop having fun” case:
Dr. Sachs in the opening World Happiness Report (2012), indicting Americans for enjoying shopping, TV, fast food, drinking, and gambling.
Sima Qian, in Burton Watson’s translation (in the “Money-makers” chapter).
A bit more:
According to the World Happiness Report (Chapter 2) Southeast Asians are most likely to laugh, with an “Anglosphere – UK and Ireland” group of North Americans, Australians and New Zealanders second. Latin America is top for “I’m doing something interesting,” and North America/Australia/New Zealand, followed very closely by Latin America and Southeast Asia, leads for “enjoyment.” And over Gallup’s 15 years of conducting this survey, the largest moves up the happiness scale are in Central/Southeastern Europe (Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria especially), while the largest drops in happiness were Lebanon, Venezuela and Afghanistan.
And three World Happiness Report leaders (happiest in the world, happiest developing country, happiest in Asia):
1. “Nobody is more cynical than Finns about the notion that we’re the world’s happiest people” — a Slate correspondent explains that Finns are pretty satisfied because they have generally low expectations and realize how much worse things could get.
2. Costa Rica’s embassy represents the happiest of all developing countries, explains.
3. And Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture highlights Fashion Week, singer Lala Hsu, and architectural awards.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
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