Finland tops the list, India at 133

VATICANCITY: Finland is the world’s happiest country, according to an annual survey issued on Wednesday that found Americans were getting less happy even as their country became richer.

India was ranked at 133 in the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s 2018 World Happiness Report which ranked 156 countries according to things such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.

Taking the harsh, dark winters in their stride, Finns said access to nature, safety, childcare, good schools and free healthcare were among the best things about in their country.

Finland rose from fifth place last year to oust Norway from the top spot. The top 10 were dominated by the Nordics: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands Canada, New Zealand, Sweden

and Australia.

The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year.

One chapter of the 170-page report is dedicated to emerging health problems such as obesity, depression and the opioid crisis, particularly in the United States where the prevalence of all three has grown faster than in most other countries.

For the first time since it was started in 2012, the report, which uses a variety of polling organisations, official figures and research methods, ranked the happiness of foreign-born immigrants in 117 countries. Finland took top honours in that category too.

The foreign-born were least happy in Syria, which has been mired in civil war for seven years.

“The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistency between the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” said professor John Helliwell of Canada’s University of British Columbia.