Switzerland, the land of clocks and chocolates is the world’s happiest country. Switzerland topped the third annual World Happiness index produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative under the United Nations.
India has done poorly in this global ranking and got the 117th position out of 158 countries on the index that took into account GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support and freedom to make life choices as indicators of happiness
Switzerland took the top spot from Denmark in 2015, rising from third to first place in this year’s list of the world’s happiest countries. It was closely followed by Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Canada. Togo, Burundi, Benin and Rwanda, with civil-war wracked Syria, were least happy. The World Happiness Report examined 158 countries and is aimed at influencing government policy.
It’s not just the fun activities that make locals and travelers to those countries happy, according to the third World Happiness Report, released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations on April 23.
People who live in the happiest countries have longer life expectancies and more social support, experience more generosity, have more freedom to make life choices, have lower perceptions of corruption and have a higher gross domestic product per capita, the report shows.
The tiny country of Bhutan, a very happy country famous for measuring the “Gross National Happiness” of its people, gets the credit for focusing world attention on happiness: Its Prime Minister proposed the idea of a World Happiness Day to the United Nations in 2011.
Recognizing “happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world,” the U.N. General Assembly declared March 20 as World Happiness Day in 2012. This officially designated happy date marked its fourth year last month.
The world has come a long way since the first World Happiness Report launched in 2012. Increasingly happiness is considered a proper measure of social progress and goal of public policy. A rapidly increasing number of national and local governments are using happiness data and research in their search for policies that could enable people to live better lives. Governments are measuring subjective well-being, and using well-being research as a guide to the design of public spaces and the delivery of public services.