Finland is the world’s happiest country, according to an annual survey issued on Wednesday (Mar 14) that put Burundi at the bottom of the happiness index and found Americans were getting less happy even as their country became richer.
Finland rose from fifth place last year to knock Norway from the top spot. The Nordics, though, still dominated the top-10 list for 2018. They are: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia.
The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year. Britain was 19th and the United Arab Emirates 20th.
Singapore came in at 34th place while Malaysia took the 35th spot. Last year, Singapore ranked 26th out of 155 territories.
India was ranked at 133 in the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report which ranked 156 countries according to things such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
Taking the harsh, dark winters in their stride, Finns said access to nature, safety, childcare nursery, good schools and free healthcare were among the best things about in their country.
For the first time since it was started in 2012, the report, which uses a variety of polling organisations, official figures and research methods, ranked the happiness of foreign-born immigrants in 117 countries.
The foreign-born were least happy in Syria, which has been mired in civil war for seven years.
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