NEW YORK: If happiness
could be measured the way a country's economic performance is measured in terms
of gross national product or gross domestic product, then Malaysia would be the
world's 51st happiest country.
This is the conclusion
drawn in the United Nations' so-called “World Happiness Report” recently
released at its headquarters in New York.
The report,
commissioned for the UN Conference on Happiness held in New York on Monday, was
derived from survey responses received from 2005 until mid-2011 to “measure the
happiness level of 156 countries”.
In Malaysia's case, a
number of factors led to its 51st ranking.
Materialistic
prosperity of individuals may have been one thing but wealth, usually an
indicator of a person's material well-being, was not the only crucial factor in
this determination. Factors such as a person's general disposition, the level
of contentment with basic aspirations were also taken into account.
Rich Scandinavian
countries such as Denmark, Finland and Norway took the top three rankings.
Singapore was ranked 33rd and Thailand, 52nd.
The world's richest
nation, the United States, landed at 11th position, with Japan at 44th and
communist China at 111th position.
According
to polls taken from 2005 to 2011, these were the happiest countries:
1.
Denmark
2.
Finland
3.
Norway
4.
Netherlands
5.
Canada
6.
Switzerland
7.
Sweden
8.
New Zealand
9.
Australia
10.
Ireland
The
United States ranks 11th, just after Ireland. The unhappiest countries
were Togo (ranked last), Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone,
Burundi, Comoros, Haiti, Tanzania, Congo and Bulgaria. Bhutan, which pioneered
the happiness index, is not included in the Gallup World Poll. (Other surveys
rank countries differently from Gallup.
