Philippines 82nd happiest nation on earth – report

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is the 82nd “happiest” nation in the world, according to the results of a global survey released Wednesday, March 16.

Denmark, closely followed by Switzerland, is the happiest country in the world while crisis-torn Syria and Burundi are the most miserable, according to the 2016 World Happiness Report.

The report seeks to quantify happiness as a means of making societies healthier and more efficient. The United Nations published the first such study in 2012.

The Philippines had a score of 5.279 out of 10, just ahead of China (83rd, score of 5.245) and behind Azerbaijan (81st, score of 5.291).

The authors said 6 factors – GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption – explain almost three-fourths of the variation across different countries.

The report compared levels of happiness in 2005-2007, before the onset of the global recession, with 2013-2015, the most recent 3-year period for which data from a Gallup World Poll is available.

Nordic countries in the lead

As with last year, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden round out the top 10. This makes small or medium-sized countries in Western Europe 7 of the top 10 happiest countries.

Denmark, which was ranked first in the 2013 version of the report but lost that honor to Switzerland in 2015, now reclaims its title as happiest country on Earth.

Burundi was the most miserable, followed by war-ravaged Syria, Togo, Afghanistan and 6 other countries in sub-Saharan Africa – Benin, Rwanda, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania and Madagascar as the least happy of 157 countries.

The report compared data from 2005 to 2015, showing that Greece, which suffered enormously from the global recession and now faces a crippling migrant crisis, had the highest drop in happiness.

The United States, where sharp polarization has been exposed in the 2016 presidential election campaign, outranked several Western European countries to be 13th most happy nation, up two spots from last year.

Germany was 16th, Britain 23rd, and France 32nd. A string of Middle Eastern kingdoms – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain – outranked Italy, which came in at number 50; and Japan, which took the 53rd spot.

India, the world’s largest democracy, came in at 118.

Significant increases, decreases

Of the 126 countries for which comparable data was available, 55 had significant increases in happiness and 45 had significant decreases, the report found.

The Philippines’ happiness index, the survey said, went up by 0.425 points in the period, the 27th highest “gainer” among the countries surveyed.

Among the top 20 gainers were Thailand and China, 8 countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe, 7 in Latin America, two in sub-Saharan Africa, and Macedonia in the Balkans.

The 20 largest losers of happiness included Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East; Japan and India in Asia; and Cyprus, Spain, Italy, and Greece in Europe – all hard hit by the economic crisis.

Ukraine, where the east has been roiled by a pro-Russian insurgency since 2014, has also fallen into the group of 10 largest happiness declines.

Iceland and Ireland offer the best examples of maintaining happiness in the face of economic crisis due to high degrees of social support, the report found.

The report was released ahead of the World Happiness Day on Sunday, March 20. – Agence France-Presse / Rappler.com