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szdaily -> Kaleidoscope -> 
Finland ranked the happiest country
    2019-03-25  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

FINLAND has a lot to celebrate.

Not only does it have a capital city bursting with gastronomic creativity, the spectacular Northern Lights and Santa Claus’s year-round home (plus the reindeer support staff) in Lapland. It’s also the happiest country in the world for the second year in a row, according to the latest World Happiness Report.

It’s followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland and The Netherlands.

The World Happiness Report was released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations on March 20, which the United Nations has declared to be International Day of Happiness.

The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.

“The top 10 countries tend to rank high in all six variables, as well as emotional measures of well-being,” says report co-editor John Helliwell, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia.

And that’s not just about the native-born residents of those countries. “It’s true that last year all Finns were happier than rest of the countries’ residents, but their immigrants were also the happiest immigrants in the world,” said Helliwell. “It’s not about Finnish DNA. It’s the way life is lived in those countries.

They pay high taxes for a social safety net, they trust their government, they live in freedom and they are generous with each other. “They do care about each other,” he says. “That’s the kind of place people want to live.”

Differences among the top eight countries are small enough that jostling among the top five is expected every year.

Switzerland came in sixth place, followed by Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria.

The 2019 list only changed a little, with Austria nudging Australia out of the top 10 list. Australia dropped one spot to 11th place.

The United States came in 19th place, dropping one spot since last year and a total of five spots since 2017.

Except for its 10th place ranking for income, the U.S. doesn’t rank in the top 10 on measures that make up a happy country in the U.N. report.

Addiction is partly to blame, says report co-author Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, who wrote a chapter focused on the U.S. epidemic of addictions and on unhappiness in America, a rich country where happiness has been declining.

Social connections are weakening in the U.S. as social media usage is raising anxiety, especially among adolescents, says Helliwell.

No other super powers made it into the top 10 rankings, either. The United Kingdom came in 15th place, up from 18th place, while Germany came in 17th place, down from 15th. Japan came in 58th place (down from 54th), and Russia came in 68th place (down from 59th).

People in South Sudan are the most unhappy with their lives, according to the survey of 156 countries, followed by Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152).

(SD-Agencies)

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