LONDON — Denmark has reclaimed its place as the world’s happiest country, while Burundi ranks as the least happy nation, according to the fourth World Happiness Report, released on Wednesday.
The
report found that inequality was strongly associated with unhappiness —
a stark finding for rich countries like the United States, where rising
disparities in income, wealth, health and well-being have fueled
political discontent.
Denmark topped the list in the first report, in 2012, and again in 2013, but it was displaced by Switzerland last year.
In this year’s ranking, Denmark was back at No. 1, followed by
Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Australia and Sweden. Most are fairly homogeneous nations with
strong social safety nets.
At
the bottom of the list of more than 150 countries was Burundi, where a
violent political crisis broke out last year. Burundi was preceded by
Syria, Togo, Afghanistan, Benin, Rwanda, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania and
Madagascar. All of those nations are poor, and many have been
destabilized by war, disease or both.
Of
the world’s most populous nations, China came in at No. 83, India at
No. 118, the United States at No. 13, Indonesia at No. 79, Brazil at No.
17, Pakistan at No. 92, Nigeria at No. 103, Bangladesh at No. 110,
Russia at No. 56, Japan at No. 53 and Mexico at No. 21. The United
States rose two spots, from No. 15 in 2015.
From
2005 to 2015, Greece saw the largest drop in happiness of any country, a
reflection of the economic crisis that began there in 2007.
The
happiness ranking was based on individual responses to a global poll
conducted by Gallup. The poll included a question, known as the Cantril
Ladder: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the
bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best
possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst
possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you
personally feel you stand at this time?”
The
scholars found that three-quarters of the variation across countries
could be explained by six variables: gross domestic product per capita
(the rawest measure of a nation’s wealth); healthy years of life
expectancy; social support (as measured by having someone to count on in
times of trouble); trust (as measured by perceived absence of
corruption in government and business); perceived freedom to make life
choices; and generosity (as measured by donations).
The report was prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an international panel of social scientists that includes economists, psychologists and public health experts convened by the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
Though the findings do not represent the formal views of the United Nations, the network is closely tied to the Sustainable Development Goals, which the organization adopted
in September, aiming, among other things, to end poverty and hunger by
2030, while saving the planet from the most destructive effects of
climate change.
The
field of happiness research has grown in recent years, but there is
significant disagreement about how to measure happiness. Some scholars
find people’s subjective assessments of their well-being to be
unreliable, and they prefer objective indicators like economic and
health data. The scholars behind the World Happiness Report said they
tried to take both types of data into account.
In a chapter of the report on the distribution of happiness around the world, three economists — John F. Helliwell, of the University of British Columbia; Haifang Huang of the University of Alberta; and Shun Wang
of the Korea Development Institute — argued against a widely held view
that changes in people’s assessments of their lives are largely
transitory. Under this view, people have a baseline level of contentment
and rapidly adapt to changing circumstances.
The
three economists noted research showing that people’s evaluations of
their lives “differ significantly and systematically among countries”;
that within countries, subgroups differ widely in their levels of
happiness; that unemployment and major disabilities have lasting
influences on well-being; and that the happiness of migrants
approximates that of their new country, instead of their country of
origin.
The
three economists noted that crises can prompt vastly different
responses based on the underlying social fabric. In Greece, where the
economy began to plummet in 2007, setting off a crisis in the eurozone
that has resulted in three financial bailouts, widespread corruption and
mistrust were associated with the diminishing sense of happiness over
the past decade.
In
contrast, trust and “social capital” are so high in Japan that scholars
found, to their surprise, that happiness actually increased in Fukushima,
which was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, because an
outpouring of generosity and cooperation contributed to the community’s
resilience and rebuilding.
“A
crisis imposed on a weak institutional structure can actually further
damage the quality of the supporting social fabric if the crisis
triggers blame and strife rather than cooperation and repair,” the
economists wrote. “On the other hand, economic crises and natural
disasters can, if the underlying institutions are of sufficient quality,
lead to improvements rather than damage to the social fabric.”
The report, which was released in Rome, included a chapter analyzing Pope Francis’ influential encyclical
last year, called “Laudato Si’,” or “Praise Be to You,” which included a
cutting assessment of a world in which continuous technological
progress was accompanied by environmental degradation, growing anxieties
about the future and persistent injustice and violence.
Jeffrey D. Sachs,
a Columbia University economist who edited the report with Dr.
Helliwell and Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, praised
Pope Francis’ admonition against hedonism and consumerism.
He
also forcefully rejected the notion that happiness and freedom —
especially when narrowly defined as economic liberty — are
interchangeable.
“The
libertarian argument that economic freedom should be championed above
all other values decisively fails the happiness test: There is no
evidence that economic freedom per se is a major direct contributor of
human well-being above and beyond what it might contribute towards
per-capita income and employment,” Dr. Sachs wrote. “Individual freedom
matters for happiness, but among many objectives and values, not to the
exclusion of those other considerations.”
