Norway is world’s happiest country

A CHILLY climate isn’t keeping Norway from basking in the glow of being named the world’s happiest country.

The Scandinavian country surged from fourth place in last year’s United Nations’ assessment all the way to the top spot, according to the World Happiness Report 2017.

Other top countries on the list included Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland, as well as Switzerland.

“For many years, Norway has been behind Denmark in this ranking,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, adding in a message on Facebook in Norwegian that “even if we top this statistic now, we (must) continue to prioritise mental health care, to improve follow-up of children and young people because many are still struggling”.

The report found that “all of the top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance”.

Rounding out the top 10 were Finland, in fifth place, The Netherlands (sixth), Canada (seventh), New Zealand (eighth) and Australia and Sweden tied for ninth.

All in, the top 10 were affluent, developed nations, though the report said that money was not the only ingredient for happiness.

In fact, among the wealthier countries, the differences in happiness levels had a lot to do with “differences in mental health, physical health and personal relationships – the biggest single source of misery is mental illness”, the report said.

“Income differences matter more in poorer countries, but even their mental illness is a major source of misery,” it added.

Another major country, China, has made major economic strides in recent years. But its people are not happier than 25 years ago, the report found. China ranked 79th in the study of 155 countries.

The United States slipped to number 14 because of less social support and greater corruption – the very factors explaining why Nordic countries fare better on the happiness scale.

Norway, the largest oil producer in western Europe, is a prosperous country – despite a recent drop in oil prices – with a very generous welfare state.

The World Happiness Report was released by the UN on the International Day of Happiness which fell on March 20 every year.

It is the fifth such report since the first was published in 2012. – AFP