Home (Site Contents)
Back to Article
Bottom of Page

UNITED NATIONS HAPPINESS REPORT
Commentary by Janice Stensrude

These short pieces were intended as side bars to the Alan Davidson interview "Money and Happiness: The Mind-Pocketbook Connection," but they were cut before publication.

THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS:
The United Nations Weighs In

After years of studying why people are unhappy, positive psychology is in vogue. Having dissected the substance of human misery, psychologists are now teasing apart the elements of human ecstasy. Everyone is jumping on the happiness bandwagon. Health & Happiness Web Magazine promises that, for the price of a subscription, you can learn how to find happiness. A book titled The Happiness Diet promises “a sharp brain, balanced mood, and lean, energized body.” And now the United Nations has joined the fray with their World Happiness Report released earlier this year.
Using the Gallup World Poll Happiness Index, the UN’s report ranks 155 countries by their average happiness scores for the years 2005 through 2011. Countries towards the top of happiness rankings had strikingly greater Gross National Product (GNP) per capita (per person) than countries at the bottom of the happiness rankings. At the bottom are countries such as Burundi, Sierra Leone and Togo, where poverty is rampant and many do not have clean water, enough to eat or a roof over their heads.
So when you don’t have the basic necessities, the report says, money does buy happiness. “While higher income may raise happiness to some extent, the quest for higher income may actually reduce one’s happiness,” the report concludes. “Psychologists have found repeatedly that individuals who put a high premium on higher incomes generally are less happy and more vulnerable to other psychological ills than individuals who do not crave higher incomes.”

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

Examining a group of countries that rank high in terms of Gross National Product (GNP), there are noticeable disparities between GNP rankings and happiness rankings. Denmark is ranked happiest, followed by Finland, Norway, The Netherlands, and Canada. Among these, only Norway is among the top ten nations in average GNP per person. In fact, seven of the top ten countries in the UN’s happiness rankings are far happier than their GNP per person (GNP/capita) would suggest.
Below are listed countries that rank in the top ten in GNP/capita and/or in the top ten in happiness. At the top in that comparison is happy New Zealand. Ranking eighth in happiness, New Zealand’s GNP/capita is down at number 31. Compare this to the oil kingdoms of Kuwait and Qatar that are not nearly as happy as their GNP/capita would predict if money is what counts. Even war-weary Ireland outranks the U.S., which coming in at 11th in happiness and 10th in GNP/capita, seems to have reached that point of diminishing returns. Does this mean that our wealth has taken us as far along the road to happiness as it can?

CountryDisparity
Index
Happiness
Rank
GNP/capita
Rank

New Zealand+23831
Finland+171919
Ireland+141024
Denmark+13114
Canada+12517
Australia+11920
Netherlands+8412
Sweden+6713
Switzerland+369
Norway+134
United States-11110
UAE-61711
Luxembourg-14162
Kuwait-23296
Qatar-30313
Singapore-30333

¤ ¤ ¤
Home (Site Contents)
Back to Article
Top of Page