Denmark has taken the top spot on the United Nation's first ever World Happiness Report, followed by Finland, Norway and the Netherlands.
The 158-page report, published by Columbia University's Earth Institute, was commissioned for the United Nations Conference on Happiness on Monday in order to "review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness."
The rankings in the report were based on a number called the "life evaluation score," a measurement which takes into account a variety of factors including people's health, family and job security as well as social factors like political freedom and government corruption. It also looks at measurements from previous reports on happiness from the Gallup World Poll (GWP), the World Values Survey (WVS), the European Values Survey (EVS), and the European Social Survey (ESS).
In the introduction to the report, co-editors John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs explain that the report aims in part to evaluate happiness based on a more comprehensive measurement system that can be used to inform policy-makers. As the Atlantic explains, previous reports on happiness have linked personal contentment to income, but that correlation has been challenged in recent years by economists who have argued that the happiness of a nation is determined by far more than its Gross National Product.
"While basic living standards are essential for happiness, after the baseline has been met happiness varies more with the quality of human relationship than with income," the report read. "Policy goals should include high employment and high-quality work; a strong community with high levels of trust and respect, which government can influence through inclusive participatory policies; improved physical and mental health; support of family life; and a decent education for all."Read it at The Huffington Post
World Happiness Report 2012: Scandinavian Countries Are Happiest On Earth
7 comments:
Sure, but I'd like to see a "1% Happiness Report". You know, for "balance". Then all those socialist countries would be ashamed of themselves.
I will be unhappier if the US government engaged in even more economic impositions and control over my life, as it is in Scandinavia.
I alone refute the notion that Scandinavian policies makes a person happier.
This is what we here in America deride as Socialist. Truly disgusting to be so happy. Not American!
"economic impositions"
Major Freedom here believes in "Taxpayer on the Hook!", no one who believes that is truly "free"...
Resp,
Mike Norman:
This is what we here in America deride as Socialist. Truly disgusting to be so happy. Not American!
I am against socialism precisely because it makes me happier to be for free markets. Why are you against my happiness?
Matt Franko:
Major Freedom here believes in "Taxpayer on the Hook!", no one who believes that is truly "free"...
I defy you to show me how me taking your money against your will does not reduce your freedom.
And why are you against other happiness? See, what a lot of you don't understand is there is positive and negative liberty.
There is no such thing as total freedom neither in human societies neither in nature. Stop the ideological bullshit for two year olds.
BTW is incredible the great leap for the worse the USA had in the decade of the 70's, just in time for the triumph over neoliberalism!
Leverage:
And why are you against other happiness?
Who are you talking to?
If me, then I am not against other people's happiness, I am against others trying to dictate my happiness without letting me choose for myself.
If not me, then disregard.
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