Global 'happiness index' ranks Canada 23rd - World

What validity does a study like this when answers are so subjective?

Global 'happiness index' ranks Canada 23rd - World - CBC News:

An annual "happiness barometer" ranks Canada the 23rd happiest nation out of 58 in the lead-up to the new year.

Leger Marketing surveyed nearly 53,000 people in 58 countries, asking participants to state whether they perceived themselves as "happy" or "unhappy" in 2011.

Fiji was the happiest, according to the Global Barometer of Happiness. And, in a surprise to the pollsters, Afghanistan recorded higher happiness numbers than the United States.

That Canada didn't rank among the top five happiest countries may surprise some people, but Scholz said the results may have something to do with how much Canadians want out of their lives.

"I think in Canada, we have a lot of high expectations," he said. "We expect happiness to be something spectacular.

"But what we define as 'happiness' is very different from what others around the world define as happiness. It's a bit of 'What are you used to, and what are you expecting?' We want more."

Differences in cultural perspectives about happiness yielded some unexpected results for the pollsters.

says, David Scholz, executive vice-president of Leger Marketing in Toronto.

Canada's net happiness score of 47 per cent, for example, tied with Japan's — a nation that was crippled this year by a series of deadly disasters, including an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.

Afghanistan, which had a net happiness score of 35 per cent, beat the United States, at 33 per cent.

Fiji ranked happiest country

The happiest people are the residents of the South Pacific island of Fiji, who scored an 85 per cent on "net happiness". 

Rounding out the top five countries for happiness, aside from Fiji, are Nigeria (84 per cent net happiness), the Netherlands (77 per cent), Switzerland (76 per cent) and Ghana (72 per cent).

The least happy place in the world, according to the survey, is Romania, which scored a negative 10 per cent on the net happiness chart.

The Global Barometer of Happiness study has been conducted annually since 1977 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three to five per cent. 

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