Friday, December 6, 2024

Ethiopia, 127th out of 156 in world happiness report Happy countries correlates with happy immigrants

The World Happiness Report ranks Ethiopia 127th out of 156 countries. The just released 2018 report ranks countries by their happiness levels. Finland tops the list with Switzerland, Norway and Denmark following as the most happy nations in the world.
The happiest countries, according to the report, scored high on six key variables 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 occur frequently.
An analysis of happiness scores from 2008-2010 to 2015-2016 shows that Togo has gained the most, moving up 17 places in the overall rankings from the last place position it held as recently as 2015. The biggest loser is Venezuela, down 2.2 points on the 0 to 10 scale.
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 not just the happiness of the migrants and their host communities, but also of those left behind, whether in the countryside or in the source country. The results are generally positive.
One of the most important findings of the report is that when countries are ranked according to the happiness of their immigrant populations the results are almost exactly the same.
The ten happiest countries in the overall rankings also are ten of the top eleven spots in the rankings of immigrant happiness. Finland is at the top of both rankings in this report, with the happiest immigrants, and the happiest population in general.
The closeness of the two rankings shows that the happiness of immigrants depends predominantly on the quality of life where they now live, illustrating a general pattern of convergence. ‘Happiness can change, and does change, according to the quality of the society in which people live,’ the report states.
The report points out that immigrant happiness, like that of the locally born, depends on a range of features of the social fabric, extending far beyond the higher incomes traditionally thought to inspire and reward migration. The countries with the happiest immigrants are not the richest countries, but instead the countries with a more balanced set of social and institutional supports for better lives.

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