Scandinavia got it going on, yo.

The 2018 World Happiness Report is out, and once again the Nordic nations are leading the way.

America, on the other hand, hasn’t really fared all that well over the past 12 months, as the country deals with a “crisis of obesity, substance abuse and depression”.

And Trump.

Via the Guardian, here’s more from that report:

The study reveals the US has slipped to 18th place, five places down on 2016. The top four places are taken by Nordic nations, with Finland followed by Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

Burundi in east Africa, scarred by bouts of ethnic cleansing, civil wars and coup attempts, is the unhappiest place in the world. Strikingly, there are five other nations – Rwanda, Yemen, Tanzania, South Sudan and the Central African Republic – which report happiness levels below that of even Syria.

For the first time the UN also examined the happiness levels of immigrants in each country, and found Finland also scored highest.

“Finland has vaulted from fifth place to the top of the rankings this year,” said the report’s authors, although they noted that the other three Nordic countries (plus Switzerland) have almost interchangeable scores.

The report, an annual publication from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said all the Nordic countries scored highly on income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. The rankings are based on Gallup polls of self-reported wellbeing, as well as perceptions of corruption, generosity and freedom.

Meik Wiking, of the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark, is pretty stoked with the results, and offered this insight into why:

“In the Nordic countries in general, we pay some of the highest taxes in the world, but there is wide public support for that because people see them as investments in quality of life for all. Free healthcare and university education goes a long way when it comes to happiness. In the Nordic countries, Bernie Sanders is not viewed as progressive – he is just common sense,” added Wiking, referring to the leftwing US politician who galvanised the Democrat primaries in the 2016 presidential election.

Paying taxes is far less painful when you know the money is being put to good use.

So, where are South Africa on this report? It could be worse, because we ranked in 105th place out of 156 countries. Sadly, that’s four spots down from last year, although maybe ridding ourselves of a certain Jacob Zuma will see an upswing in morale.

At least we’re better off than these spots:

[source:guardian]