The results are in. The World Happiness Report 2017 was just released this week and the winner is… Norway. Yup, that little Scandinavian country best known for their “fjords” snagged the top spot, up from fourth place last year. How did the United States fare? Not top five. The other four spots went to Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and Finland. Not top 10, either. US came in at 14, which is happier than the United Kingdom (19) and Germany (16) but not as happy as Australia (9) or Canada (7). Apparently Scandinavia has it figured out.
The “economics of happiness,” as the report calls it, take into account a variety of factors when ranking the overall state of happiness of a country. These factors include the country’s perception of corruption, life expectancy at birth, generosity, social support, average GDP per capita and freedom to make life choices. The report says that the United States has been becoming increasingly unhappy, and says while the average American has been increasingly making more money (average GDP is consistently climbing), we’re on a happiness decline because of “…less social support, less sense of personal freedom, lower donations, and more perceived corruption of government and business.”
So we’re becoming more unhappy. Canada is happier than us, but we are happier than the United Kingdom. But still…not even top 10? Damn. If anything, one thing we can take away from this is that money definitively cannot buy happiness. We’ve been trying for years, and it’s apparently not working. Guess it’s time to go kayak through a fjord.
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