First UN World Happiness Report Places India 94th

The first UN World Happiness Report was released a few days ago, and the objective of this report is to go away from monetary measures like GNP to a measure that shows the well being of a country’s citizens. They have tried to measure happiness through some subjective questions and the results are pretty interesting.

There are probably no surprises at the top 9 spots which are occupied by Denmark, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, and Australia. I was a bit surprised to see Ireland at number 10 followed by the United States at number 11.

But from then on the results are pretty weird and and it’s hard to understand or explain some of the rankings in there.

For instance, Germany is down at number 30 much below countries like Venezeula, Mexico, Panama and Brazil. Japan is even lower at 44 and slightly worse off than Greece at 42.

Iran is 84, Pakistan is 85, and India is below both at 94, and China doesn’t even make it to the top 100!

Here is the list of the top 100 countries – what do you make of it?

S.No. Country
1 Denmark
2 Finland
3 Norway
4 Netherlands
5 Canada
6 Switzerland
7 Sweden
8 New Zealand
9 Australia
10 Ireland
11 United States
12 Costa Rica
13 Austria
14 Israel
15 Belgium
16 Luxembourg
17 UAE
18 UK
19 Venezuela
20 Iceland
21 Panama
22 Spain
23 France
24 Mexico
25 Brazil
26 Saudi Arabia
27 Puerto Rico
28 Italy
29 Kuwait
30 Germany
31 Qatar
32 Turkmenistan
33 Singapore
34 Belize
35 Cyprus
36 Czech Republic
37 Guatemala
38 Trinidad & Tobago
39 Argentina
40 Jamaica
41 Colombia
42 Greece
43 Chile
44 Japan
45 Guyana
46 Taiwan
47 Malta
48 El Salvador
49 Slovenia
50 Uruguay
51 Malaysia
52 Thailand
53 Poland
54 Jordan
55 Slovakia
56 South Korea
57 Bolivia
58 Croatia
59 Kazakhstan
60 Lithuania
61 Bahrain
62 Belarus
63 Hondarus
64 Mauritius
65 Vietnam
66 Ecuador
67 Hong Kong
68 Kosovo
69 Cuba
70 Paraguay
71 Algeria
72 Estonia
73 Portugal
74 Myanmar
75 Moldova
76 Russia
77 Peru
78 Turkey
79 Uzbekistan
80 Romania
81 Libya
82 Laos
83 Indonesia
84 Iran
85 Pakistan
86 Montenegro
87 Tunisia
88 Albania
89 Nicaragua
90 South Africa
91 Ukraine
92 Lebanon
93 Dominican Republic
94 India
95 Djibouti
96 Hungary
97 Namibia
98 Iraq
99 Bosnia
100 Nigeria

6 thoughts on “First UN World Happiness Report Places India 94th”

  1. i didn’t see Bhutan in this list. it was the first nation to coin the term ‘gross national happiness’ index.

  2. the methodology followed to rate countries on this happiness scale would have been illuminating. in the absence of this, any such list rating happiness, beauty, corruption, etc (all these ‘lie’ in the eye of the beholder) are at best subjective and only have entertainment value or worse are falsehoods imposed upon the general public.
    someone once declared to me that his doctor was rated 4th best in the world and the 2nd best in Asia!
    these ‘lists’ deserves the same treatment one gives to daily forecasts published in newspapers. enjoy them and move on with your life.

  3. Surprised to see countries like Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica up there……
    They could have also had Cuba……..

  4. I feel India being at 94 is an averaging-out effect. If you just separate out Indian middle class, it would place much higher in the list..

  5. I would have thought India would rate atleast higher than Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Lebanon. I have been to few of these places and I know how difficult it is to live there.
    So this surpirises me a bit !

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