The world's happiest 10 nations are...

[Tender Branson]

  1 - Denmark
  2 - Norway
  3 - Switzerland
  4 - Netherlands
  5 - Sweden
  6 - Canada
  7 - Finland
  8 - Austria
  9 - Iceland
10 - Australia

(CNN) -- Those looking for greater happiness and satisfaction in life should head to northern Europe, but steer clear of Egypt and countries worst hit by the eurozone crisis, according to the 2013 World Happiness Report released Monday by Columbia University's Earth Institute.

The United States came in at number 17 in the world in terms of overall happiness, but it still lags behind Canada (6), Australia (10), Israel (11) the United Arab Emirates (14) and Mexico (16), according to the Earth Institute.

The report ranks the United Kingdom as the 22nd happiest country in the world. Other major nations included Germany (26), Japan (43), Russia (68) and China (93).

www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/business/earth-institute-world-happiness-rankings/index.html

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Germans and Brits are less happy than Americans! But Mexicans aren't? What the!?!

[Keystone Phil]

AUSTRIA!!!1EIN

[Tender Branson]

AUSTRIA!!!1EIN

The Germans are losing out. That's all that matters here.

[opebo]

Its a simple conclusion - left=happy, right=miserable.

[freefair]

Its a simple conclusion - left=happy, right=miserable.

And an inherently incorrect one
In what universe are these nations left wing? These are the ones that always come at the top of
those charts and tables of "economic freedom"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom

And really,Switzerland? This is the nation mainly governed by these guys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_People's_Party

[Hatman 🍁]

opebo's right. Denmark is the highest taxed country in the world. Yet it is the happiest. Coincidence? Their high taxes ran out all the libertarians long ago. No wonder they're so happy!

[Tender Branson]

And really,Switzerland? This is the nation mainly governed by these guys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_People's_Party

No:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordance_system

A party with 28% doesn't govern anything alone.

[freefair]

I already knew about the Magic forumula. Hence the use of the word "Mainly" to mean "they have the most seats, cantons, and influence"!
And Hatman, that's quite irrelevant to me, my ideal of a party is pretty close to the centre-right, free market-liberal parties that actually govern or have recently governed all these nations (apart from Austria), such as Venstre, the Liberal People's, the Dutch VVD, etc

[Franknburger]

The ranking is just coming from some Gallup polling, which is as reliable as ..eh.. Gallup polling. Apparently, the question asked was something like "On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your life?"

Then there is some 150 pages of trying to statistically relate the Gallup scores to indicators such as GNI, life expectation, unemployment, corruption perception, but also emotional indicators ("have you smiled today" etc.). Turns out these indicators can explain around 77% of the Gallup score, while 23% of the country-to-country variation remain unexplainable. Together with a statistical base value, which fluctuates considerably from year to year and is as such also not really meaningful statistically, in average 1.98 from a country's score (that may rank from 1-10 in theory, and has been measured between 2.9 and 7.7) remain a mystery.

They have probably good reasons to not publish the "unexplained residual" numerically, but just plot it on a rather rough scale. Nevertheless, here is my best guess on these "mystery scores" for selected countries (average is 1.98):

1. Denmark            2.3
2. Norway              2.5
3. Switzerland        2.4
4. Netherlands       2.2
5. Sweden              2.2
6. Canada              2.3
..
8. Austria               2.4
..
10. Australia          2.0
11. Israel               3.1
..
13. New Zealand   2.0
..
16. Mexico              3.3
17. USA                  2.3
18. Ireland             1.9
...
22. UK                    1.7
25. France              2.2
26. Germany           1.8
..
30. Singapore         1.5

The report includes a short section on "cultural response bias":

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I guess information on the time of year and prevailing weather conditions when Gallup surveyed each country might have provided some explanatory value as well.

[DC Al Fine]

Its a simple conclusion - left=happy, right=miserable.

On a personal level that's false. Self-described relgiouses/conservatives are generally happier.

[Franknburger]

Its a simple conclusion - left=happy, right=miserable.

On a personal level that's false. Self-described relgiouses/conservatives are generally happier.

Happy with the status quo => conservative. Unhappy=> desire for change/reform.

[HansOslo]

I am not surprised to see the old union of Denmark-Norway dominating this ranking.

[ingemann]

I'm not entirely happy about these kind of lists. It tend to ignore the cultural difference between countries, what do happiness mean. A example the Danish word used in this is "lykke" and "lykkelig" which have a slighly different meaning a deeper kind of sense of joy.

The other element is how people look at life. Americans tend to be optimists, they expect hard work and their own (perceived) high moral to reward them in the end. Danes on the other hand expect life to be hard and unrewarding. This lead Americans to be more willing to take chance as they see themselves as fundamental good people and expect the world to reward them for it. Danes on the other hand are low risk takers, and expect no good deed to go unpunished. This mean that if a American fail, both he and other Americans see it as a personal failling. Danes on other hand just see failling as a natural part of life and to large extent saying nothing about the person it happens to. This is of course very simplified.

This you would think would make Americans more happy and Danes less. But no because Danes expect life to be harsh, they look at their life and think either "this is not that bad" or "this could be a lot worse". Americans on the other hand ask "why isn't this better" and see it as a personal failling

[t_host1]

aahhh... today, it is mother Russia!!!

Russian procreation day
 
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/02/04/russian-president-vladimir-putin-hires-boyz-ii-men-to-help-raise-russian-birth-rate/

Obama has to be think'n, damn...

[Franknburger]

I'm not entirely happy about these kind of lists. It tend to ignore the cultural difference between countries, what do happiness mean. A example the Danish word used in this is "lykke" and "lykkelig" which have a slighly different meaning a deeper kind of sense of joy.

The other element is how people look at life. Americans tend to be optimists, they expect hard work and their own (perceived) high moral to reward them in the end. Danes on the other hand expect life to be hard and unrewarding. This lead Americans to be more willing to take chance as they see themselves as fundamental good people and expect the world to reward them for it. Danes on the other hand are low risk takers, and expect no good deed to go unpunished. This mean that if a American fail, both he and other Americans see it as a personal failling. Danes on other hand just see failling as a natural part of life and to large extent saying nothing about the person it happens to. This is of course very simplified.

This you would think would make Americans more happy and Danes less. But no because Danes expect life to be harsh, they look at their life and think either "this is not that bad" or "this could be a lot worse". Americans on the other hand ask "why isn't this better" and see it as a personal failling

There is another cultural factor involved as well - understatement vs. overstatement. It is well known from surveys on sexual activities. Men regularly state to be much more sexually active than women, which makes you wonder whom they carry out sexual activities with.
Looking at the "unexplained residual", which I listed a few posts above, it is below average for South and South-East Asia, but also for the UK (British understatement), and above average for Latin America.

Inside Europe, e.g., the differential between Germany and Austria is quite striking. Consumer indebtedness may be taken as an indicator to which extent people want to "show off" in relation to their actual financial status, and is significantly higher in Southern than in Northern Germany. Assuming the pattern sets forth into Austria, this might indicate "happiness over reporting" on behalf of Austrians.