Are Papua New Guineans happy citizens?

Global Socio-environment issues

Happy Papua New Guinean children

Are Papua New Guineans happy citizens?

PORT MORESBY: Yet again, Papua New Guinea is not mentioned in a global survey.

Early this week, a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit was released, revealing that Hong Kong and Paris are now tied with Singapore as the world’s most expensive cities to live ( https://pngcybermonitor.blogspot.com/2019/03/really-try-living-cost-in-port-moresby.html)

This time, The World Happiness Report was released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations on March 20, the date that the United Nations has declared to be the International Day of Happiness.

So, are Papua New Guineans happy or unhappy? Well, at least Papua New Guinea is not listed in the World’s Top 10 least happy countries.

Read on the CNN report below for details:

This is the world's happiest country in 2019

Katia Hetter, CNN • Updated 20th March 2019

(CNN) — Finland has a lot to celebrate.

Not only does it have a capital city bursting with gastronomic creativity, the spectacular Northern Lights and Santa Claus's year-round home (plus the reindeer support staff) in Lapland. It's also the happiest country in the world for the second year in a row, according to the latest World Happiness Report.

It's followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland and The Netherlands.


The world's happiest country likes ice swimming.
Juho Kuva

The World Happiness Report was released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations on March 20, the date that the United Nations has declared to be the International Day of Happiness.

The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.

"The top 10 countries tend to rank high in all six variables, as well as emotional measures of well-being," says report co-editor John Helliwell, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia.

And that's not just about the native-born residents of those countries.

"It's true that last year all Finns were happier than rest of the countries' residents, but their immigrants were also happiest immigrants in the world," says Helliwell. "It's not about Finnish DNA. It's the way life is lived in those countries."

They pay high taxes for a social safety net, they trust their government, they live in freedom and they are generous with each other. "They do care about each other," he says. "That's the kind of place people want to live."

Differences among the top eight countries are small enough that jostling among the top five is expected every year.

Switzerland came in sixth place, followed by Sweden, New Zealand, Canada (the only country in the Americas) and Austria.

The 2019 list only changed a little, with Austria nudging Australia out of the top 10 list. Australia dropped one spot to 11th place.
Support in difficult times

The world's 10 happiest countries. Austria nudged Australia out of the top 10 list this year, While Salzburg is famous for its ties to the real-life "Sound of Music" von Trapp family, it was also home to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Mirabell Gardens shown here (see the historic Fortress Hohensalzburg in the background).


Shutterstock

Ranking high in happiness doesn't protect a country's people from violence or trauma, as the recent attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand show. But the response of New Zealand's people to the attacks does.

New Zealand came in eighth place this year, as it did last year.

"What stands out about the happiest and most well connected societies is their resilience and ability to deal with bad things," says Helliwell. "After the 2011 earthquake and now the terrorist attack in Christchurch -- with high social capital, where people are connected -- people rally and help each other and (after the earthquake) rebuild immediately."
The US rank is dropping


The most popular US national park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a happy place for many visitors.
Shutterstock

The United States came in 19th place, dropping one spot since last year and a total of five spots since 2017.

Except for its 10th place ranking for income, the US doesn't rank in the top 10 on measures that make up a happy country in the UN report. They include 12th place for generosity, 37th place for social support, 61st place for freedom and 42nd place for corruption.

Addiction is partly to blame, says report co-author Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, who wrote a chapter focused on the US epidemic of addictions and unhappiness in America, a rich country where happiness has been declining.

This year's report provides sobering evidence of how addictions are causing considerable unhappiness and depression in the US," says Sachs, in a press release. "Addictions come in many forms, from substance abuse to gambling to digital media. The compulsive pursuit of substance abuse and addictive behaviors is causing severe unhappiness."

Social connections are weakening in the US as social media usage is raising anxiety, especially among adolescents, says Helliwell.

Superpowers are not super happy

The United Kingdom rose three spots to 15th place this year.
Leon Neal/Getty Images

No other super powers made it into the top 10 rankings, either. The United Kingdom came in 15th place, up from 18th place, while Germany came in 17th place, down from 15th. Japan came in 58th place (down from 54th), Russia came in 68th place (down from 59th) and China came in 93rd place (down from 86th).

People in South Sudan are the most unhappy with their lives, according to the survey of 156 countries, followed by Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152).

Bolstered by population growth, overall world happiness has fallen over the past few years, which has mostly been fueled by a sustained drop in India, which came in 140th place this year (versus 133rd place in 2018). There has also been an increase of negative emotions, which were also measured and include worry, sadness and anger.

It began with Bhutan

The prime minister of tiny Bhutan is credited with launching World Happiness Day.
Shutterstock

The prime minister of the tiny country of Bhutan proposed a World Happiness Day to the United Nations in 2011, which brought international attention to happiness as a metric. Bhutan came in 95th place (up two spots from last year) in this year's report.

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly declared March 20 as World Happiness Day, recognizing "the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives."

This report is the seventh to come out since 2012. The rankings of the world's happiest countries came from an analysis of data from surveys in 156 countries, including the Gallup World Poll starting in 2005-2006.

World's happiest countries

1. Finland

2. Denmark

3. Norway

4. Iceland

5. Netherlands

6. Switzerland

7. Sweden

8. New Zealand

9. Canada

10. Australia

World's least happy countries

1. South Sudan

2. Central African Republic

3. Afghanistan

4. Tanzania

5. Rwanda

6. Yemen

7. Malawi

8. Syria

9. Botswana

10. Haiti

A summary of the World Happiness Report (Go to http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2018/ to download full report)

MARCH 14, 2018

The overall rankings of country happiness are based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015-2017, and show both change and stability. There is a new top ranking country, Finland, but the top ten positions are held by the same countries as in the last two years, although with some swapping of places. Four different countries have held top spot in the four most recent reports- Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland.

All the top countries 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. Among the top countries, differences are small enough that that year-to-year changes in the rankings are to be expected.

The analysis of happiness changes from 2008-2010 to 2015-2015 shows Togo as the biggest gainer, moving up 17 places in the overall rankings from the last place position it held as recently as in the 2015 rankings. The biggest loser is Venezuela, down 2.2 points on the 0 to 10 scale.

Five of the report’s seven chapters deal primarily with migration, as summarized in Chapter 1. For both domestic and international migrants, the report studies not just the happiness of the migrants and their host communities, but also of those left behind, whether in the countryside or in the source country. The results are generally positive.

Perhaps the most striking finding of the whole report is that a ranking of countries according to the happiness of their immigrant populations is almost exactly the same as for the rest of the population. The immigrant happiness rankings are based on the full span of Gallup data from 2005 to 2017, sufficient to have 117 countries with more than 100 immigrant respondents.

The ten happiest countries in the overall rankings also ll ten of the top eleven spots in the ranking of immigrant happiness. Finland is at the top of both rankings in this report, with the happiest immigrants, and the happiest population in general.

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. Happiness can change, and does change, according to the quality of the society in which people live. 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 countries with the happiest immigrants are not the richest countries, but instead the countries with a more balanced set of social and institutional supports for better lives.

While convergence to local happiness levels is quite rapid, it is not complete, as there is a ‘footprint’ effect based on the happiness in each source country. This effect ranges from 10% to 25%. This footprint effect, explains why immigrant happiness is less than that of the locals in the happiest countries, while being greater in the least happy countries.

A very high proportion of the international differences in immigrant happiness (as shown in Chapter 2), and of the happiness gains for individual migrants (as studied in Chapters 3 and 5) are thus explained by local happiness and source country happiness.

The explanation becomes even more complete when account is taken of international differences in a new Gallup index of migrant acceptance, based on local attitudes towards immigrants, as detailed in an Annex to the Report. A higher value for migrant acceptance is linked to greater happiness for both immigrants and the native-born, by almost equal amounts.

The report studies rural-urban migration as well, principally through the recent Chinese experience, which has been called the greatest mass migration in history. That migration shows some of the same convergence characteristics of the international experience, with the happiness of city-bound migrants moving towards, but still falling below urban averages.

The importance of social factors in the happiness of all populations, whether migrant or not, is emphasized in Chapter 6, where the happiness bulge in Latin America is found to depend on the greater warmth of family and other social relationships there, and to the greater importance that people there attach to these relationships.

The Report ends on a different tack, with a focus on three emerging health problems that threaten happiness: obesity, the opioid crisis, and depression. Although set in a global context, most of the evidence and discussion are focused on the United States, where the prevalence of all three problems has been growing faster and further than in most other countries.