A new study has concluded that Switzerland, the land of clocks and chocolates, is the happiest country in the world according to the annual World Happiness Report. They measured well-being levels and happiness of 158 countries.
According to the study which was backed by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), following Switzerland were countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Canada, Reuters reports. However, countries like Togo, Burundi, Syrial, Benin and Rwanda have the most unhappy people in the world.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York told Reuters, "The aspiration of society is the flourishing of its members. This report gives evidence on how to achieve societal well‐being. It's not by money alone, but also by fairness, honesty, trust and good health."
The study based the rankings of the countries on data collected by the Gallup World Poll. Variables such as read GDP per capita, health life expectancy, corruption levels and social freedoms were taken into consideration, BBC News reports.
Stated in the report, "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."
The researchers have broken down the data by gender, age and religion. Based on their findings, they found out that women's assessment of their happiness were higher than those of men. Consequently, younger people are happier than older people.
The report concluded, "Of the 125 countries with data available for both 2005-2007 and 2012-2014, there were 53 countries with significant improvements, 41 with significant worsening, and 36 without significant change."
