World Happiness Report: Sri Lanka ranked 130 among 156 countries; Finland tops list for second time

Sri Lanka was ranked at 130 on the United Nation’s latest World Happiness Report that gauged 156 countries, with FInland topping the list for the second consecutive year as the happiest country.  Denmark and Norway madeit into the top five while South Sudan was ranked at the bottom of the index.

The report, released in conjunction with the International Day of Happiness on March 20, ranked 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries according to the happiness of their immigrants.

“All the top countries,” the report noted, “tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.”

The report claimed that  the countries which had suffered  a decline in rank had some combination of economic, political, and social stresses. The study based its findings on individuals’ assessment of their lives in relation to the Gross Domestic Product per capita income, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.

The authors of the report noted that the ten happiest countries also had  the most content immigrants. “The closeness of the two rankings shows that the happiness of immigrants depends predominantly on the quality of life where they now live, illustrating a general pattern of convergence,” the report noted.

“Immigrant happiness, like that of the locally born, depends on a range of features of the social fabric, extending far beyond the higher incomes traditionally thought to inspire and reward migration.”

The report added that the large gaps in happiness between countries would continue to create pressure to migrate.

See the full report