Indians less happy than Pakistanis, Bangladeshis: UN report

NEW DELHI: The gloomy state of the economy bothering you? Or is it the soaring price of onions? Or maybe the pervasive corruption in public life? Take your pick. Indians rank 111th in the UN's just published Happiness Report, registering what we knew already: the declining quality of life in India. The US (at 17th position), for instance is less happy than Mexico, while India is less happy than both Pakistan (at 81) and Bangladesh (108). South Asia has by and large shown a greater dip in the happiness quotient. Between 2005-07 and 2010-12 Indians showed a decrease in happiness.

According to the UN report, all the happiness is somehow concentrated in northern Europe where Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway corner the top five spots. People living in Benin and Togo are the least happy in the world.

The happiness report ranks nations on metrics of well-being and on the basis of six key factors like GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption and generosity.

"The positive contributions from continuing economic growth and greater generosity were more than offset by the effects of declining social support, and of less perceived freedom to make life choices. Inequality in the distribution of happiness also grew significantly within South Asia," the report observed.

It says while there sub-Saharan Africa has a lower average score, "corruption is seen as a smaller problem there than in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Central and Eastern Europe, and south-East Asia. Similarly, a higher fraction of respondents have someone to count on in Sub-Saharan Africa than in either South Asia or the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Generosity, even before adjusting for income differences, is higher in Sub-Saharan Africa than in three regions- the CIS, East Asia, and MENA."

The authors of the report say respondents made a clear distinction between "happiness as an emotion and happiness in the sense of life satisfaction.... A very poor person might report himself to be happy emotionally at a specific time, while also reporting a much lower sense of happiness with life as a whole."

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