ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has beaten the south Asian Nations in the WorldHappiness Index.
Pakistan is at the 75th happiest country in the world, according to anannual survey issued on Wednesday.
Pakistan ranks higher than Bangladesh (115), India (133) and Afghanistan(145) in the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s (SDSN) 2018 WorldHappiness Reportlink> which ranked156 countries according to things such as GDP per capita, social support,healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence ofcorruption.
Finland is the world’s happiest country and Burundi came in the bottom ofthe report.
The report found Americans were getting less happy even as their countrybecame richer.
Taking the harsh, dark winters in their stride, Finns said access tonature, safety, childcare, good schools and free healthcare were among thebest things about in their country.
“I’ve joked with the other Americans that we are living the American dreamhere in Finland,” said Brianna Owens, who moved from the United States andis now a teacher in Espoo, Finland’s second biggest city with a populationof around 280,000.
“I think everything in this society is set up for people to be successful,starting with university and transportation that works really well,” Owenstold Reuters.
Finland, rose from fifth place last year to oust Norway from the top spot.The 2018 top-10, as ever dominated by the Nordics, is: Finland, Norway,Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands Canada, New Zealand, Sweden andAustralia.
The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year. Britainwas 19th and the United Arab Emirates 20th.
One chapter of the 170-page report is dedicated to emerging health problemssuch as obesity, depression and the opioid crisis, particularly in theUnited States where the prevalence of all three has grown faster than inmost other countries.
While US income per capita has increased markedly over the last halfcentury, happiness has been hit by weakened social support networks, aperceived rise in corruption in government and business and decliningconfidence in public institutions.
“We obviously have a social crisis in the United States: more inequality,less trust, less confidence in government,” the head of the SDSN, ProfessorJeffrey Sachs of New York’s Columbia University, told Reuters as the reportwas launched at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
“It’s pretty stark right now. The signs are not good for the U.S. It isgetting richer and richer but not getting happier.”
Asked how the current political situation in the United States could affectfuture happiness reports, Sachs said: “Time will tell, but I would say thatin general that when confidence in government is low, when perceptions ofcorruption are high, inequality is high and health conditions are worsening… that is not conducive to good feelings.”
For the first time since it was started in 2012, the report, which uses avariety 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, giving the country astatistical double-gold status.
The foreign-born were least happy in Syria, which has been mired in civilwar for seven years.
“The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistencybetween the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” said ProfessorJohn Helliwell of Canada’s University of British Columbia.