On March 20, the United Nations celebrated its thirdannual International Day of Happiness.
So, Happy belated International Day of Happiness!
The UN created the holiday to include happiness as an indicator as to howwe are succeeding as a global community.
In 2012, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, said that for too long theworld has used Gross National Product (GNP) to measure the well-being of a country’s population. In other words, the amount of money people made.Money certainly does help a country’s and a person’s well-being. But it is not the only factor.
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Members of a laughter club participate in a laughing exercise in Mumbai, India, May 2014. Don't tell them that India ranks quite low on the United Nations' happiness survey. |
So, you might be asking, where are the happiest people on the planet?
Gallup poll finds Latin America is a very happy place
If you live in Latin America, chances are you are happy, according to Gallup’s “Positive Experience Index.” This Gallup index found that day-to-day peoplein Latin America are some of the happiest people on the planet.
In fact, for the first time in Gallup's 10-year history of global tracking ofhappiness, all of the top 10 countries with the highest “Positive ExperienceIndex” scores are in Latin America.
Here they are in descending order of happiness:
Paraguay
Colombia
Ecuador
Guatemala
Honduras
Panama
Venezuela
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Nicaragua
Gallup representatives asked adults in 143 countries the following questions: “Did you feel well-rested yesterday?” “Were you treated with respect all dayyesterday? “Did you smile or laugh a lot?” “Did you learn or do somethinginteresting?”
They compiled the “yes” responses from thesequestions into what they call a “Positive ExperienceIndex” score for each country.
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Paraguayan Anacleto Escobar (R) and his wife Cayetana Roman, smile during a ceremony coinciding with his 100th birthday in which they received a house. |
The index score for the world in 2014 is 71. Thisnumber has remained steady through the years. Morethan 70% of people worldwide said they had fun, smiledor laughed a lot, felt well rested and respected.
Gallup gathered the information from face-to-face andphone interviews with about 1,000 adults from eachcountry. They spoke with people in both rural and urban areas.
It is perhaps not surprising that places that experiencedconflict such as South Sudan and Ukraine and placesthat suffered or are suffering from Ebola scored quitelow on the “Positive Experience Index.”
However, even in places where the fewest peoplereported having positive emotions such as Afghanistan, the majority of people still said they smiled or laughed alot the day before the Gallup interview.
Gallup found that the area of the world with the lowestpositive emotions is in the Middle East and North Africa region. However,Gallup did not gather data from several countries in the Middle East in time to be included in the 2014 results. For example, data from Bahrain, Oman,Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are not included. The UAEusually scores well on happiness surveys.
Last year, Syria had the lowest positive emotion points ever reported. Syria is not included in this year’s study as data was not available at the time theGallup report was written.
Gallup’s happiness poll also found that having money is not necessarily thekey to happiness. Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in the world interms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but ties for second when it comes topositive emotions.
A larger picture of happiness
The United Nations did a much larger survey in 2013 called the WorldHappiness Report. Chances are Latin America countries will not be happywith this report.
The authors of this UN report considered factors such as healthy life expectancy at birth, freedom to make life choices, a country’s social support systems and experience with corruption. They also used some Gallup pollresults on happiness.
The authors of the larger UN study say it is important when you measure forhappiness that you separate happiness as an emotion and happiness as anevaluation of a person’s well-being.
For example, the answer to “Do you feel happy right now?” is a measure of a person’s emotion. And the answer to “Are you happy with your life as awhole?” measures an evaluation of a person’s well-being.
The Gallup poll on “Positive Experience” focused on how people felt the daybefore the survey. However, the larger U.N. study focused on a person’s lifeas a whole.
The results were quite different.
In the UN report, Denmark and other Scandinavian countries were in the topten of the happiest places on earth.
Denmark
Norway
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Sweden
Canada
Finland
Austria
Iceland
Australia
When considering all the other factors of the UN report, Paraguay falls from 1st to 54th, Colombia falls from 2nd to 35th, Ecuador from 3rd to 49th andGuatemala falls from 4th to 47th. Honduras falls from 5th to 84th. However,Costa Rica remains near the top moving from 8th to 12th.
According to the United Nations report, several sub-Saharan Africancountries where poverty is high were among the least happy. But other resultsdid not fall along clear economic lines.
Costa Rica was the 12th-happiest country, well aboveprosperous Japan in 43th place. Angola at 61st andVietnam at 63rd were both happier places than majoreconomies like China at 98th or India at 111th.
Studies can only tell us so much. In the commentssection please share your happiness level and thehappiness level of your country.
I’m Anna Matteo.
And I’m Mario Ritter.
Anna Matteo wrote this story for VOA Learning English based on reports fromGallup and the United Nations. Hai Do was the editor.
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Words in This Story
index – n. a sign or number that shows how something is changing or performing
indicator - n. a sign that shows the condition or existence of something.
poll - n. an activity in which several or many people are asked a question or a series of questions in order to get information about what most people think about something
survey – n. an activity in which many people are asked a question or a seriesof questions in order to gather information about what most people do or thinkabout something
data – n. factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, orcalculation
evaluation – n. to determine the significance, worth, or condition of usually bycareful appraisal and study
prosperous – adj. marked by success or economic well-being
