Are you as happy living in Canada as you were last year? According to the 10th annual World Happiness Report, Canada now ranks 15th on the list of happiest countries in the world — dropping drastically from previous years.
Related: 40 per cent of Canadian young adults are at a mental health breaking point: survey.
What is the World Happiness Report?
Published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a global initiative for the United Nations, the annual World Happiness Report ranks countries’ happiness “based on life evaluations as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives.” The report measures well-being using three factors: life evaluations, positive emotions and negative emotions, paying specific attention to daily emotions.
The report is based on contributing data from the Gallup World Poll, which asked participants to evaluate their current life, ranging from 10 to zero, with 10 being the best possible life, and zero being the worst.
The study graphs average life evaluation per country and explains the results by six factors: dystopia, perceptions of corruption, generosity, freedom to make life changes, life expectancy, social support and GDP per capita.
Related: Canada ranked as top 15 most affordable countries to buy a home — yes, really.
In previous years, Canada has placed amongst the top 10 for the happiest country in the world. This year, however, Canada dropped to its lowest point ever. At 15th (of the 146 countries on the ranking chart), Canada falls below Germany (14th), but still ranks above the United States (16th) and the United Kingdom (17th).
Finland continues to occupy the reigning champion spot as the World’s Happiest Country for the fifth year running, followed closely by Denmark (2nd), Switzerland (3rd), Iceland (4th) and the Netherlands (5th).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the five lowest-ranked countries for happiness are Afghanistan (146th), Lebanon (145th), Zimbabwe (144th), Rwanda (143rd) and Botswana (142nd).
It is safe to say there has been a shift in the overall happiness of Canadians, and it might benefit us to take notes from our long-distance neighbours to figure out what that might be.
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