World Happiness Report

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Map showing happiness of countries by their score according to the 2018 World Happiness Report.

The World Happiness Report is an annual publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It contains articles, and rankings of national happiness based on respondent ratings of their own lives,^[1] which the report also correlates with various life factors.^[2]
As of March 2019, Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world twice in row.^[3]^[4]

Production

The World Happiness Report is edited by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs. The 2017 edition added three associate editors; Jan-Emmanuel De Neve,^[5] Haifang Huang,^[6] and Shun Wang.^[7] Authors of chapters include Richard Easterlin, Edward F. Diener, Martine Durand,^[8] Nicole Fortin,^[9] Jon Hall,^[10] Valerie Møller,^[11] and many others.

History

In July 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development^[12] inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy. On April 2, 2012, this was followed by the first UN High Level Meeting called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,^[13] which was chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan, a nation that adopted gross national happiness instead of gross domestic product as their main development indicator.^[14]
The first World Happiness Report was released on April 1, 2012 as a foundational text for the UN High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,^[15] drawing international attention.^[16] The report outlined the state of world happiness, causes of happiness and misery, and policy implications highlighted by case studies. In 2013, the second World Happiness Report was issued, and since then has been issued on an annual basis with the exception of 2014.^[17] The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. Each annual report is available to the public to download on the World Happiness Report website.^[18]

Methods and philosophy

The rankings of national happiness are based on a Cantril ladder survey. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.^[19] The report correlates the results with various life factors.^[20]
In the reports, experts in fields including economics, psychology, survey analysis, and national statistics, describe how measurements of well-being can be used effectively to assess the progress of nations, and other topics. Each report is organized by chapters that delve deeper into issues relating to happiness, including mental illness, the objective benefits of happiness, the importance of ethics, policy implications, and links with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) approach to measuring subjective well-being and other international and national efforts.

Annual Report Topics

World Happiness Reports were issued in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 (an update), 2017 and 2018. In addition to ranking countries happiness and well-being levels, each report has contributing authors and most focus on a subject. The data used to rank countries in each report is drawn from the Gallup World Poll,^[21] as well as other sources such as the World Values Survey, in some of the reports. The Gallup World Poll questionnaire^[22] measures 14 areas within its core questions: (1) business & economic, (2) citizen engagement, (3) communications & technology, (4) diversity (social issues), (5) education & families, (6) emotions (well-being), (7) environment & energy, (8) food & shelter, (9) government and politics, (10) law & order (safety), (11) health, (12) religion and ethics, (13) transportation, and (14) work.

2019 World Happiness Report

The 2018 iteration was released on 20 March and focused on the relation between happiness and migration. As per 2019 Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world,^[23] with Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland holding the next top positions. The World Happiness Report 2018 ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants. The main focus of this year's report, in addition to its usual ranking of the levels and changes in happiness around the world, is on migration within and between countries. 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. Four countries have held the top spot in the last four 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 year-to-year changes in the rankings are to be expected.
The analysis of happiness changes from 2008–2015 shows Togo as the biggest gainer, moving up 17 places in the overall rankings from 2015. The biggest loser is Venezuela, down 2.2 points. 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 the happiness of those migrants and their host communities, and also of those in the countryside or in the country of origin. 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 make up 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. 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.

2016 World Happiness Report

Descriptions

2015 World Happiness Report

Descriptions

2013 World Happiness Report

Descriptions

2012 World Happiness Report

Descriptions

International rankings

Data is collected from people in over 150 countries. Each variable measured reveals a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other countries. These variables currently include: real GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Each country is also compared against a hypothetical nation called Dystopia. Dystopia represents the lowest national averages for each key variable and is, along with residual error, used as a regression benchmark.

2018 report

The 2018 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2015-2017. As per the 2018 Happiness Index, Finland is the happiest country in the world. Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland hold the next top positions. The report was published on 14 March 2018 by UN. The full report can be read at 2018 Report. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2019, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants, was released on March 20 at a launch event at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican.

Overall Rank	Country	Score	GDP per capita	Social support	Healthy life expectancy	Freedom to make life choices	Generosity	Perceptions of corruption
1	Finland	7.632	1.305	1.592	0.874	0.681	0.192	0.393
2	Norway	7.594	1.456	1.582	0.861	0.686	0.286	0.340
3	Denmark	7.555	1.351	1.590	0.868	0.683	0.284	0.408
4	Iceland	7.495	1.343	1.644	0.914	0.677	0.353	0.138
5	Switzerland	7.487	1.420	1.549	0.927	0.660	0.256	0.357
6	Netherlands	7.441	1.361	1.488	0.878	0.638	0.333	0.295
7	Canada	7.328	1.330	1.532	0.896	0.653	0.321	0.291
8	New Zealand	7.324	1.268	1.601	0.876	0.669	0.365	0.389
9	Sweden	7.314	1.355	1.501	0.913	0.659	0.285	0.383
10	Australia	7.272	1.340	1.573	0.910	0.647	0.361	0.302
11	Israel	7.190	1.244	1.433	0.888	0.464	0.262	0.082
12	Austria	7.139	1.341	1.504	0.891	0.617	0.242	0.224
13	Costa Rica	7.072	1.010	1.459	0.817	0.632	0.143	0.101
14	Ireland	6.977	1.448	1.583	0.876	0.614	0.307	0.306
15	Germany	6.965	1.340	1.474	0.861	0.586	0.273	0.280
16	Belgium	6.927	1.324	1.483	0.894	0.583	0.188	0.240
17	Luxembourg	6.910	1.576	1.520	0.896	0.632	0.196	0.321
18	United States	6.886	1.398	1.471	0.819	0.547	0.291	0.133
19	United Kingdom	6.814	1.301	1.559	0.883	0.533	0.354	0.272
20	United Arab Emirates	6.774	2.096	0.776	0.670	0.284	0.186	N/A
21	Czech Republic	6.711	1.233	1.489	0.854	0.543	0.064	0.034
22	Malta	6.627	1.270	1.525	0.884	0.645	0.376	0.142
23	France	6.489	1.293	1.466	0.908	0.520	0.098	0.176
24	Mexico	6.488	1.038	1.252	0.761	0.479	0.069	0.095
25	Chile	6.476	1.131	1.331	0.808	0.431	0.197	0.061
26	Taiwan	6.441	1.365	1.436	0.857	0.418	0.151	0.078
27	Panama	6.430	1.112	1.438	0.759	0.597	0.125	0.063
28	Brazil	6.419	0.986	1.474	0.675	0.493	0.110	0.088
29	Argentina	6.388	1.073	1.468	0.744	0.570	0.062	0.054
30	Guatemala	6.382	0.781	1.268	0.608	0.604	0.179	0.071
31	Uruguay	6.379	1.093	1.459	0.771	0.625	0.130	0.155
32	Qatar	6.374	1.649	1.303	0.748	0.654	0.256	0.171
33	Saudi Arabia	6.371	1.379	1.331	0.633	0.509	0.098	0.127
34	Singapore	6.343	1.529	1.451	1.008	0.631	0.261	0.457
35	Malaysia	6.322	1.161	1.258	0.669	0.356	0.311	0.059
36	Spain	6.310	1.251	1.538	0.965	0.449	0.142	0.074
37	Colombia	6.260	0.960	1.439	0.635	0.531	0.099	0.039
38	Trinidad & Tobago	6.192	1.223	1.492	0.564	0.575	0.171	0.019
39	Slovakia	6.173	1.210	1.537	0.776	0.354	0.118	0.014
40	El Salvador	6.167	0.806	1.231	0.639	0.461	0.065	0.082
41	Nicaragua	6.141	0.668	1.319	0.700	0.527	0.208	0.128
42	Poland	6.123	1.176	1.448	0.781	0.546	0.108	0.064
43	Bahrain	6.105	1.338	1.366	0.698	0.594	0.243	0.123
44	Uzbekistan	6.096	0.719	1.584	0.605	0.724	0.328	0.259
45	Kuwait	6.083	1.474	1.301	0.675	0.554	0.167	0.106
46	Thailand	6.072	1.016	1.417	0.707	0.637	0.364	0.029
47	Italy	6.000	1.264	1.501	0.946	0.281	0.137	0.028
48	Ecuador	5.973	0.889	1.330	0.736	0.556	0.114	0.120
49	Belize	5.956	0.807	1.101	0.474	0.593	0.183	0.089
50	Lithuania	5.952	1.197	1.527	0.716	0.350	0.026	0.006
51	Slovenia	5.948	1.219	1.506	0.856	0.633	0.160	0.051
52	Romania	5.945	1.116	1.219	0.726	0.528	0.088	0.001
53	Latvia	5.933	1.148	1.454	0.671	0.363	0.092	0.066
54	Japan	5.915	1.294	1.462	0.988	0.553	0.079	0.150
55	Mauritius	5.891	1.090	1.387	0.684	0.584	0.245	0.050
56	Jamaica	5.890	0.819	1.493	0.693	0.575	0.096	0.031
57	South Korea	5.875	1.266	1.204	0.955	0.244	0.175	0.051
58	Northern Cyprus	5.835	1.229	1.211	0.909	0.495	0.179	0.154
59	Russia	5.810	1.151	1.479	0.599	0.399	0.065	0.025
60	Kazakhstan	5.790	1.143	1.516	0.631	0.454	0.148	0.121
61	Cyprus	5.762	1.229	1.191	0.909	0.423	0.202	0.035
62	Bolivia	5.752	0.751	1.223	0.508	0.606	0.141	0.054
63	Estonia	5.739	1.200	1.532	0.737	0.553	0.086	0.174
64	Paraguay	5.681	0.835	1.522	0.615	0.541	0.162	0.074
65	Peru	5.663	0.934	1.249	0.674	0.530	0.092	0.034
66	Kosovo	5.662	0.855	1.230	0.578	0.448	0.274	0.023
67	Moldova	5.640	0.657	1.301	0.620	0.232	0.171	0.000
68	Turkmenistan	5.636	1.016	1.533	0.517	0.417	0.199	0.037
69	Hungary	5.620	1.171	1.401	0.732	0.259	0.061	0.022
70	Libya	5.566	0.985	1.350	0.553	0.496	0.116	0.148
71	Philippines	5.524	0.775	1.312	0.513	0.643	0.120	0.105
72	Honduras	5.504	0.620	1.205	0.622	0.459	0.197	0.074
73	Belarus	5.483	1.039	1.498	0.700	0.307	0.101	0.154
74	Turkey	5.483	1.148	1.380	0.686	0.324	0.106	0.109
75	Pakistan	5.472	0.652	0.810	0.424	0.334	0.216	0.113
76	Hong Kong	5.430	1.405	1.290	1.030	0.524	0.246	0.291
77	Portugal	5.410	1.188	1.429	0.884	0.562	0.055	0.017
78	Serbia	5.398	0.975	1.369	0.685	0.288	0.134	0.043
79	Greece	5.358	1.154	1.202	0.879	0.131	0.000	0.044
80	Tajikistan	5.358	0.474	1.179	0.598	0.503	0.214	0.136
81	Montenegro	5.347	1.017	1.279	0.729	0.259	0.111	0.081
82	Croatia	5.321	1.115	1.161	0.737	0.380	0.120	0.039
83	Dominican Republic	5.302	0.982	1.441	0.614	0.578	0.120	0.106
84	Algeria	5.295	0.979	1.154	0.687	0.077	0.055	0.135
85	Morocco	5.254	0.779	0.797	0.669	0.460	0.026	0.074
86	China	5.246	0.989	1.142	0.799	0.597	0.029	0.103
87	Azerbaijan	5.201	1.024	1.161	0.603	0.430	0.031	0.176
88	Lebanon	5.199	0.965	1.166	0.785	0.292	0.187	0.034
89	Macedonia	5.185	0.959	1.239	0.691	0.394	0.173	0.052
90	Jordan	5.161	0.822	1.265	0.645	0.468	0.130	0.134
91	Nigeria	5.155	0.689	1.172	0.048	0.462	0.201	0.032
92	Kyrgyzstan	5.131	0.530	1.416	0.594	0.540	0.281	0.035
93	Bosnia and Herzegovina	5.129	0.915	1.078	0.758	0.280	0.216	0.000
94	Mongolia	5.125	0.914	1.517	0.575	0.395	0.253	0.032
95	Vietnam	5.103	0.715	1.365	0.702	0.618	0.177	0.079
96	Indonesia	5.093	0.899	1.215	0.522	0.538	0.484	0.018
97	Bhutan	5.082	0.796	1.335	0.527	0.541	0.364	0.171
98	Somalia	4.982	0.000	0.712	0.115	0.674	0.238	0.282
99	Cameroon	4.975	0.535	0.891	0.182	0.454	0.183	0.043
100	Bulgaria	4.933	1.054	1.515	0.712	0.359	0.064	0.009
101	Nepal	4.880	0.425	1.228	0.539	0.526	0.302	0.078
102	Venezuela	4.806	0.996	1.469	0.657	0.133	0.056	0.052
103	Gabon	4.758	1.036	1.164	0.404	0.356	0.032	0.052
104	Palestinian Territories	4.743	0.642	1.217	0.602	0.266	0.086	0.076
105	South Africa	4.724	0.940	1.410	0.330	0.516	0.103	0.056
106	Iran	4.707	1.059	0.771	0.691	0.459	0.282	0.129
107	Ivory Coast	4.671	0.541	0.872	0.080	0.467	0.146	0.103
108	Ghana	4.657	0.592	0.896	0.337	0.499	0.212	0.029
109	Senegal	4.631	0.429	1.117	0.433	0.406	0.138	0.082
110	Laos	4.623	0.720	1.034	0.441	0.626	0.230	0.174
111	Tunisia	4.592	0.900	0.906	0.690	0.271	0.040	0.063
112	Albania	4.586	0.916	0.817	0.790	0.419	0.149	0.032
113	Sierra Leone	4.571	0.256	0.813	0.000	0.355	0.238	0.053
114	Congo (Brazzaville)	4.559	0.682	0.811	0.343	0.514	0.091	0.077
115	Bangladesh	4.500	0.532	0.850	0.579	0.580	0.153	0.144
116	Sri Lanka	4.471	0.918	1.314	0.672	0.585	0.307	0.050
117	Iraq	4.456	1.010	0.971	0.536	0.304	0.148	0.095
118	Mali	4.447	0.370	1.233	0.152	0.367	0.139	0.056
119	Namibia	4.441	0.874	1.281	0.365	0.519	0.051	0.064
120	Cambodia	4.433	0.549	1.088	0.457	0.696	0.256	0.065
121	Burkina Faso	4.424	0.314	1.097	0.254	0.312	0.175	0.128
122	Egypt	4.419	0.885	1.025	0.553	0.312	0.092	0.107
123	Mozambique	4.417	0.198	0.902	0.173	0.531	0.206	0.158
124	Kenya	4.410	0.493	1.048	0.454	0.504	0.352	0.055
125	Zambia	4.377	0.562	1.047	0.295	0.503	0.221	0.082
126	Mauritania	4.356	0.557	1.245	0.292	0.129	0.134	0.093
127	Ethiopia	4.350	0.308	0.950	0.391	0.452	0.220	0.146
128	Georgia	4.340	0.853	0.592	0.643	0.375	0.038	0.215
129	Armenia	4.321	0.816	0.990	0.666	0.260	0.077	0.028
130	Myanmar	4.308	0.682	1.174	0.429	0.580	0.598	0.178
131	Chad	4.301	0.358	0.907	0.053	0.189	0.181	0.060
132	Congo (Kinshasa)	4.245	0.069	1.136	0.204	0.312	0.197	0.052
133	India	4.190	0.721	0.747	0.485	0.539	0.172	0.093
134	Niger	4.166	0.131	0.867	0.221	0.390	0.175	0.099
135	Uganda	4.161	0.322	1.090	0.237	0.450	0.259	0.061
136	Benin	4.141	0.378	0.372	0.240	0.440	0.163	0.067
137	Sudan	4.139	0.605	1.240	0.312	0.016	0.134	0.082
138	Ukraine	4.103	0.793	1.413	0.609	0.163	0.187	0.011
139	Togo	3.999	0.259	0.474	0.253	0.434	0.158	0.101
140	Guinea	3.964	0.344	0.792	0.211	0.394	0.185	0.094
141	Lesotho	3.808	0.472	1.215	0.079	0.423	0.116	0.112
142	Angola	3.795	0.730	1.125	0.269	0.000	0.079	0.061
143	Madagascar	3.774	0.262	0.908	0.402	0.221	0.155	0.049
144	Zimbabwe	3.692	0.357	1.094	0.248	0.406	0.132	0.099
145	Afghanistan	3.632	0.332	0.537	0.255	0.085	0.191	0.036
146	Botswana	3.590	1.017	1.174	0.417	0.557	0.042	0.092
147	Malawi	3.587	0.186	0.541	0.306	0.531	0.210	0.080
148	Haiti	3.582	0.315	0.714	0.289	0.025	0.392	0.104
149	Liberia	3.495	0.076	0.858	0.267	0.419	0.206	0.030
150	Syria	3.462	0.689	0.382	0.539	0.088	0.376	0.144
151	Rwanda	3.408	0.332	0.896	0.400	0.636	0.200	0.444
152	Yemen	3.355	0.442	1.073	0.343	0.244	0.083	0.064
153	Tanzania	3.303	0.455	0.991	0.381	0.481	0.270	0.097
154	South Sudan	3.254	0.337	0.608	0.177	0.112	0.224	0.106
155	Central African Republic	3.083	0.024	0.000	0.010	0.305	0.218	0.038
156	Burundi	2.905	0.091	0.627	0.145	0.065	0.149	0.076

2017 report

The 2017 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2014-2016. For that timespan, Norway was the overall happiest country in the world, even though oil prices had dropped. Close behind were Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland in a tight pack. Four of the top five countries follow the Nordic model. All the top ten countries had high scores in the six categories. The ranked follow-on countries in the top ten are: Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden.

Table

2013–2015 averaged ranking

Table

Criticism

Metrics

Some argue that questioning on overall life status leads humans to overweight income concerns, rather than happiness. For instance Colombia came 37th in the 2018 World Happiness Index but 1st by daily emotional experience.^[50] In 2012 "A Gallup survey on happiest countries had a completely different list [compared with the World Happiness Index], with Panama first, followed by Paraguay, El Salvador, and Venezuela". Similarly a Pew survey of 43 countries in 2014 (which excluded most of Europe) had Mexico, Israel and Venezuela finishing first, second and third.^[51]
Others point out that the ranking results are counterintuitive when it come to some dimensions, for "instance if rate of suicide is used as a metric for measuring unhappiness, (the opposite of happiness), then some of the countries which are ranked among the top 20 happiest countries in the world will also feature among the top 20 with the highest suicide rates in the world."^[52]

Methodology

From an econometric perspective, some statisticians argue the statistical methodology mentioned in the first world happiness report using 9 domains is unreliable.^[53]
Others argue that the World Happiness Report model uses a limited subset of indicators used by other models and does not use an Index function like peer econometric models such as Gross National Well-being Index 2005, Sustainable Society Index of 2008,^[54] OECD Better Life Index of 2011, and Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index of 2012, and Social Progress Index of 2013.
Other critics point out that Happiness Surveys are contradictory in Ranking because of the varying methodologies. They also argue that the surveys are inherently flawed. "No matter how carefully parsed the data may be, a survey based on unreliable answers isn't worth a lot."

Philosophical concerns

From a philosophical perspective, critics argue that measuring of happiness of a grouping of people is misleading because happiness is an individual matter. They state "[for] the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Tolstoy and several others, happiness is an individual choice that is independent of the society, its structures and enabling or dis-enabling conditions and not something to be measured using variables that can only capture a nation's well-being. This means therefore that one cannot really talk of a happy or unhappy nation, but of happy or unhappy individuals."^[55]

Notes

Score not included in the original report, but was attained by adding up Europe's scores and then dividing for an average: 6.08044.

See the following on statehood criteria:
- Mendes, Errol (30 March 2010). "Statehood and Palestine for the purposes of Article 12 (3) of the ICC Statute" (PDF). 30 March 2010: 28, 33. Retrieved 2011-04-17: "...the Palestinian State also meets the traditional criteria under the Montevideo Convention..."; "...the fact that a majority of states have recognised Palestine as a State should easily fulfill the requisite state practice".
- McKinney, Kathryn M. (1994). "The Legal Effects of the Israeli-PLO Declaration ofPrinciples: Steps Toward Statehood for Palestine". Seattle University Law Review. Seattle University. 18 (93): 97. Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2011-04-17: "It is possible, however, to argue for Palestinian statehood based on the constitutive theory".
- McDonald, Avril (Spring 2009). "Operation Cast Lead: Drawing the Battle Lines of the Legal Dispute". Human Rights Brief. Washington College of Law, Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. 25. Retrieved 2011-04-17: "Whether one applies the criteria of statehood set out in the Montevideo Convention or the more widely accepted constitutive theory of statehood, Palestine might be considered a state."

References

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/columns/can-happiness-really-be-measured/139302.html

External links

v t e Lists of countries by quality of life rankings
General	Life expectancy Europe South America World Happiness Report Happy Planet Index Human Capital Index Human Development Index by country inequality-adjusted Legatum Prosperity Index Good Country Index Satisfaction with Life Index Where-to-be-born Index
Economic	Net take-home pay Long-term unemployment rate Home ownership rate Smartphone ownership rate
Environment	Environmental Performance Index Environmental Vulnerability Index Natural disaster risk
Health	Cancer rate Health care quality Health expenditure covered by government Hospital beds Risk of death from non-communicable disease Teenage pregnancy rate
Social/Political	Government transparency Global Slavery Index Global Terrorism Index Global Competitiveness Index Social Progress Index Time devoted to leisure and personal care Women's average years in school
List of international rankings List of top international rankings by country Lists by country

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Score not included in the original report, but was attained by adding up all the scores and then dividing for an average: 5.3053935483871.

Score not included in the original report, but just added up all the scores and divided for an average: 4.9592.

Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008, but Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the Brussels Agreement. Kosovo has been recognized as an independent state by 113 out of 193 United Nations member states, 10 of which have subsequently withdrawn recognition.

Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are from nationally representative samples. http://worldhappiness.report/faq/

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