Israel is tied with
Canada, Switzerland, and Australia as the world's eighth happiest
country out of 155 surveyed, according to a Gallup World Poll posted by Forbes Thursday.
Forbes
said the richest countries were by and large the happiest. Scandinavian
countries dominated the list, with Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden,
and the Netherlands taking all top five spots. African nations took up
most of the bottom, with Sierra Leone, Cambodia (not African), Comoros,
Buriundi, and Togo ranking as the unhappiest countries on earth.
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Israel
far outstripped its neighbors in happiness, with Jordan ranking 52,
Lebanon 73, Egypt and Syria 115. The Palestinian Territories were 88 on
the list.
The US ranked number 14 on the list, ahead of Britain, 17.
Iran came in at the middle, with 81. War-torn Iraq ranked 110, and Afghanistan 115.
The
four-year survey asked thousands of respondents in the 155 countries to
give a "life evaluation" score between one and ten, and cataloged their
daily feelings to decide what percentage of people in each country were
"thriving, struggling, or suffering." The survey was taken between 2005
and 2009.
"Money is an object that many or most people desire,
and pursue during the majority of their waking hours," researchers wrote
in the report. "It would be surprising if success at this pursuit had
no influence whatsoever when people were asked to evaluate their lives."
Although the study showed happiness to be highly correlated with wealth,
regional correlation was strong as well, given the unbroken string of
Scandinavian countries at the top and the majority of African ones at
the bottom.
"The Scandinavian countries do really well," said Jim Harter, a chief
scientist at Gallup. "One theory why is that they have their basic needs
taken care of to a higher degree than other countries. When we look at
all the data, those basic needs explain the relationship between income
and well-being."
According to the Forbes table, the happiest country in the Americas was Costa Rica, which came in at
number six worldwide, according to the report. "Costa Rica ranks really
high on social and psychological prosperity," said Harter. "It's
probably things systemic to the society that make people over time
develop better relationships, and put more value on relationships. Daily
positive feelings rank really high there."
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