Report ranks Denmark world's best and Burundi as unhappiest

A cyclist rides past autumn-coloured ivy climbing the wall of a building in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark.

Denmark overtook Switzerland as the happiest place, according to a report released yesterday.

The report urged nations regardless of wealth to tackle inequality, protect the environment and keep their country’s social fabric from tearing apart.

The 65-page report, prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, showed Syria, Afghanistan and eight sub-Saharan countries were rated the 10 least happy places on earth to live.

The top 10 this year were Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. Denmark was in third place last year, behind Switzerland and Iceland.

Aiming to “survey the scientific underpinnings of measuring and understanding subjective well-being”, the report, now in its fourth edition, uses six components to rank 157 countries by happiness levels.

They are: per capita gross domestic product, healthy years of life expectancy, social support as measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble, trust as measured by perceived absence of corruption in government and business, perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity as measured by recent donations.

“A report like this is a message not only to poor countries... (there are) even some inexpensive ways to do better,” said Prof Jeffrey Sachs, head of the SDSN and special advisor to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

“Focus on health, focus on improving the honesty of government, doesn’t cost a lot of money and it can be done. It’s a message to rich countries also like the United States that have a kind of pure money mentality and have let the social fabric fall apart,” Sachs, one of the authors of the report, told Reuters in an interview in Rome.

The report, which was being presented at a conference at the Bank of Italy, showed the grouping of the top 10 happiest countries did not change from last year’s survey but their positions moved up or down because of variations in one or more of the components. The US came in at 13, the United Kingdom at 23, France at 32, and Italy at 50.

“And the message for the United States is clear: for a society that just seems to chase money, chase money. We’re chasing the wrong things for what the public really needs and wants. Our social fabric is deteriorating, social trust is deteriorating, faith in government is deteriorating,” he said. The first report was issued in 2012 to support a UN meeting on happiness and well-being. Five countries - Bhutan, Ecuador, Scotland, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela - now have appointed Ministers of Happiness charged with promoting it as a goal of public policy.

The bottom 10 on the list were Madagascar, Tanzania, Liberia, Guinea, Rwanda, Benin, Afghanistan, Togo, Syria and Burundi.