The Global Hunger Index. The Gross Domestic Product. The Gross National Product. All these statistics are essential in evaluating the current state of a nation as well as their development as whole. While these data can be easily calculated when the data is collected, is it possible to measure the level of happiness in a country? The United Nations recently revealed the rankings of the happiest countries around the world, an unique form of statistical data calculated for each individual nation. While the idea of ranking counties based on a mood may seem questionable, when analyzing the rankings, interesting patterns and meanings can be uncovered in the process.
Currently, Norway and many other Scandinavian countries have topped the charts in terms of their overall emotional satisfaction, and the geographic locations of these countries are only one of many similarities. When closely examining these developed countries, not only do they share great wealth, but are also share "all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income, and good governance". While the idea of ranking a country based on the citizens' feelings may seem arbitrary, the patterns that emerge from the rankings reveal that the countries are not randomly ranked, but rather carefully placed in the order of the combinations of many vital factors for a healthy and happy country. It is not merely a coincidence that the wealth European countries with high levels of income, health, and stable government are the homes to the happiest people in the world. In fact, researchers interview over 1000 people per country annually and ask numerous questions ranging from simple emotional health questions to complicated questions that identifies the "people's perceived level of freedom, generosity and trust - both in each other and in their government and businesses". While this data may not require number crunching such as GDP and GNP, the feedback that are collected are utilized to identify a sociological pattern within the 190 plus countries in the world. Clearly, continuous research that goes towards identifying a country's level of joy is much more sophisticated than many may think.
Hence, while the global ranking of happiness may seem as a basic, unprofessional ranking system, when examining the factors that are included in putting the countries in order, one can see that the data is not merely made up, but rather a coagulation of intricate studies done by researchers.
Link: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/20/520859626/global-ranking-of-happiness-has-happy-news-for-norway-and-nicaragua
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