WHEN it comes to happiness, Cyprus lies halfway down the world ranking, at number 69 out of 157 countries, according to the latest world happiness report published on Wednesday.
The report, prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, measures six categories aiming to “survey the scientific underpinnings of measuring and understanding subjective well-being.” Apart from gross domestic product (GDP) and healthy years of life expectancy, it also rates social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption. It covers the years from 2013 to 2015.
The top ten this year were Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. These countries are all small or medium-sized western industrial countries, of which seven are in Western Europe. Syria, Afghanistan and eight sub-Saharan countries are the least happy places on earth to live.
On a scale from zero to ten, where 10 is the most happy, average life evaluations in the top ten countries are more than twice as high as in the bottom ten, 7.4 compared to 3.4, and the figure for Cyprus is 5.5.
The lowest countries are typically marked by low values on all of the six variables used here to explain international differences and often subject in addition to violence and disease. This is not always the case, though.
While Burundi, which ranks last, is an example of a country where all six categories have a low value, Syria is second last despite having a reasonably high GDP. It is, however, seen by its residents to have very low social support and people don’t feel free to make life choices.
In Cyprus, GDP is perceived as relatively high, but it is low on social support, and people are not at all happy about the level of corruption. In addition, the level of equality has decreased significantly compared to the period from 2005 to 2007, by 0.7 points. Thus it is now ranked 138 on a list which is headed by Bhutan.
As a result of the findings, the report urges nations to tackle inequality and protect the environment regardless of wealth, as all categories are important.
“We find that four variables covering different aspects of the social and institutional context – having someone to count on, generosity, freedom to make life choices and absence of corruption – are together responsible for 50 percent of the average differences between each country’s predicted ladder score,” they said.
“When countries single-mindedly pursue individual objectives, such as economic development to the neglect of social and environmental objectives, the results can be highly adverse for human wellbeing, even dangerous for survival.”
“Many countries in recent years have achieved economic growth at the cost of sharply rising inequality, entrenched social exclusion, and grave damage to the natural environment,” the report concluded.
