Canada beats U.S. in global happiness index
Updated Mon. Sep. 3 2007 7:29 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
We might be worried about how our loonie is doing, or our vanishing manufacturing sector, but overall Canada is doing well on the global "happiness index" created by a European academic.
Ruut Veenhoven, who created the World Database of Happiness in 1999, now lists 95 countries in his intricately crafted tables.
Canada has a score of 7.6 on the index, compared to the United States' 7.4 score. We're ninth overall in the world, and the U.S. is down at 17th place.
The top rated countries are: Denmark (8.2) and Switzerland (8.1), followed by Colombia, Austria, Iceland, Finland, Australia, Sweden, and then Canada.
Tanzania, by contrast, received a score of only 3.2.
Veenhoven says all countries in the top group scored closely, with the differences small.
"All these countries in the top are Western and they're rich," Veenhoven told CTV.ca in a phone interview from Rotterdam. "They're democratic, and they have a lot of gender equality and are fairly tolerant."
Veenhoven says his work is motivated by a desire to promote happiness. To do that, he needs to define happiness and learn what makes people happy.
"My definition of happiness is how much you like the life you live. That's something you know. And that's something you can measure by asking people, and of course you must do that in a systematic way," he said.
So Veenhoven bases much of his study on anonymous questionnaires. But self-reporting can be notoriously inaccurate; for example, drug addicts, by their own measure, would likely say they are always happy. So the index also uses more measures. For Veenhover's research, the three major factors contributing to happiness are:
1. The quality of society at large -- the main focus of Veenhover's research.
2. The quality of the organizations where we work -- how good your employer is for you, and how nice school is for your children.
3. Personal choices and variations. "Some people make more out of life than others," Veenhoven says.
While the scores for the top-ranking nations were tight, Veenhoven says there are some big differences. Adequate social programs, for example, lead to happiness, though not absolutely. Veenhoven found that citizens are no more satisfied in welfare states than in purer free-market economies.
"In the beginning, I didn't believe my eyes,'' said Veenhoven of his data. "Icelanders are just as happy as Swedes, yet their country spends half what Sweden does (per capita) on social welfare,'' he said.
Typically, people are happier when they have choices.
"In Saudi Arabia, they're very rich but choice is rather limited and as a result, people are less happy than equally rich countries," Veenhoven says.
The freedom factor
Individualistic cultures, such as Canada, bring about more satisfaction than collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, which received a score of 6.2, tied with Uzbekistan. Veenhoven believes lack of freedom of choice is the biggest factor. While Japanese culture is becoming a more individualistic society, it isn't there yet.
"Freedom of choice is particularly relevant. If we get stuck in a way of life that makes us unhappy and then we have a way out, we can leave an unhappy marriage. Divorce is no fun but you can get out. And you can also leave unsatisfying jobs. In collectivistic cultures, it's less possible."
Spirituality can lead to happiness, though again, it's not a hard and fast rule. Veenhoven found that nations in which citizens are religious are typically slightly happier. For example, previous research in the U.S. has shown that religious individuals are happier than non-religious individuals.
"That's not reproduced in Denmark and the Netherlands," he says. "So it's not a universal pattern that people are happier than when they're members of the church and when they're religious."
He says that if you look closer at the relationship between happiness and religion in the U.S., the strongest correlation is with membership of church and church attendance, not so much with religious practices such as praying.
"So I think it's typically the social effects of church that accounts for the greater happiness."
The growing field of happiness
Veenhoven believes that happiness measures are catching on, and he is now one of many academics who try to gauge the health of a nation by its happiness score.
Recently, the OECD (Organization of Economic Ccooperation and Development) held a conference called "Is happiness measurable and what do those measures mean for policy?" looking at the determinants of happiness and the methodology issues in satisfaction measurement. Veenhoven was one of the participants.
He notes that organizations like the OECD are now thinking beyond the traditional measures of GNP and economic growth, and looking more at individuals and what makes them satisfied.
"Increasingly, there's an interest in happiness," he says. "It's just the beginning."
TOP NATIONS (Top 14 out of 95)
· DENMARK 8.2 (rank 1)
· SWITZERLAND 8.1 (tied, rank 2-3)
· COLOMBIA 8,1 (rank 2-3)
· AUSTRIA 8.,0 (rank 4)
· ICELAND 7.8 (rank 5)
· FINLAND 7.7 (tied, rank 6-8)
· AUSTRALIA 7.7 (rank 6-8)
· SWEDEN 7.7 (rank 6-8)
· CANADA 7.6 (tied, rank 9-14)
· GUATEMALA 7.6 (rank 9-14)
· IRELAND 7.6 (rank 9-14)
· LUXEMBOURG 7.6 (rank 9-14)
· MEXICO 7.6 (rank 9-14)
· NORWAY 7.6 (rank 9-14)
(The U.S.A. has a rating of 7.4, with an overall rank of 17)
BOTTOM 5 NATIONS
· ARMENIA 3.7 (rank 91)
· UKRAINE 3.6 (rank 92)
· MOLDOVA 3.5 (rank 92)
· ZIMBABWE 3.3 (rank 94)
· TANZANIA 3.2 (rank 95)
