World Happiness Report

The World Happiness Report is a report by the United Nations ranking the nations of the world by the happiness of their citizens. The Northern European nations tend to rank at the top, while black nations tend to rank at the bottom. Asian nations are in the middle. Possible reasons for Northern European nations ranking at the top are a very high standard of living, low crime, people with a strong pro-social personality, and a focus on egalitarianism rather than the hierarchical mentality that pervades Eastern Europe and East Asia. Possible reasons for black nations ranking at the bottom are an extremely low standard of living as well as pervasive criminal violence.

The implication of this is that as Western society continues to import more blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Eastern Europeans, the happiness of these nations can be expected to sink. Indeed, the happiness level of the United States has witnessed a decline since the report was published.

Regardless, the above possible explanations is not what the 2018 report itself typically claims are explanations, instead focusing on the factors GDP/capita, healthy life expectancy, degree of corruption, perceived "freedom to make life choices", "generosity" towards others, and "social support" from others.

A main author of the 2018 report is the Jewish economist Jeffrey Sachs, associated with the "shock therapy" economic programs after the fall of Communism. See also Russian oligarchs.

The 2018 report is strongly focused on mass migration and trying to find support for that this is beneficial. The methods are dubious, such as stating that several of the countries having the highest mass immigration are wealthy Muslim oil countries, when they only allow temporary guest workers who can be, and often are, quickly expelled if there are any perceived problems or when they are no longer useful. Furthermore, the report makes no distinction between countries only allowing very selective immigration of those considered useful, such as Singapore, and other countries, such as those allowing many "refugees".

The report strangely alleges that the degree of immigration does not affect the happiness of the "original residents in the host country", a strange claim when many studies on ethnic heterogeneity have found that increasing such has many negative effects, including on happiness/life satisfaction, mental health, physical health, charity, corruption, crime, economic development, social capital, and trust.

The report also states declining happiness for many Western countries with recent mass immigration, such as Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Other criticisms include that other "happiness" reports have given very different results and that self-reported happiness/life-satisfaction is of dubious value, greatly affected by factors such as how the survey questions are formulated and what the local culture expects. "These surveys depend on subjective self-reporting, not to mention eliding cultural differences. In Japan there is a cultural bias against boasting of one’s good fortune, and in East Asia the most common response, by far, is to report one’s happiness as average. In Scandinavia, meanwhile, there is immense societal pressure to tell everyone how happy you are, right up to the moment when you’re sticking your head in the oven. Longtime Scandinavian resident Michael Booth observes as much in his book on the subject, in which he points out that Danes and Icelanders ranked fourth and first in the world in use of antidepressants in an OECD survey. Booth, after living in Scandinavia for more than a decade, says that he’s never met a Dane who really believes Danes are among the happiest people."

External links

• Official website