FIVE THINGS ABOUT GLOBAL HAPPINESS

1 NORWAY LEADS THE WAY

Norway is the happiest country on Earth, vaulting to the top in the World Happiness Report despite the plummeting price of oil. Norway moved from No. 4 to the top spot. It edged past previous champ Denmark, which fell to second. “Good for them. I don’t think Denmark has a monopoly on happiness,” said Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5. Central African Republic fell to last place.

2 WHAT ABOUT CANADA?

Canada ranked 7th of 155 countries. The rankings are based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy with four factors from global surveys. In those surveys, people give scores from 1 to 10 on how much support they feel they have if something goes wrong, their freedom to make life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.

3 AMERICANS GRUMBLING

Income in the United States has gone up over the past decade, but happiness is declining. The U.S. was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, and over the years Americans steadily have been rating themselves less happy.

4 WHAT’S THEIR PROBLEM?

“We’re becoming more and more mean spirited. And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising,” study co- author and economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University said, citing research and analysis he conducted. “It’s a long- term trend and conditions are getting worse.”

5 WHY DO THE STUDY?

Serious academics have long been calling for more testing about people’s emotional well- being. In 2013, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report recommending that federal statistics and surveys, which normally deal with income, spending and health, include a few extra questions on happiness because it would lead to better policy.