
Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth - _of
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-39325206
======
mi_noi_noi
I am Norwegian and wonder how much of this is cultural. Most people here know
that the rest of the world has much lower living standards. So for many it is
perhaps rude or shameful to claim to be unhappy or dissatisfied.

I know it says "subjective happiness" in the report, but I still suspect it
might be an influence.

~~~
jernfrost
1) Happiness is not as subjective as people think. Research suggest that what
people state about their own happiness correlates very well with how friends
and colleagues would describe a person as.

2) Having lived abroad extensively and traveled around many places keenly
trying to observe these things I'd say Norwegian happiness is real. But we
have a tendency in Norway to take every good thing for granted and complain a
lot. E.g. I noticed when in North American, despite equal wealth, there is a
lot more hardship and stress. You can even tell just by looking at people.
People are stressed out about over demanding jobs, risk of losing health care,
crime, dysfunctional politics etc.

We Norwegians have among the best work-life balances of anywhere. Works
doesn't stress people out as much as many other places. And the government
provided welfare services means we worry a lot less about stuff than people in
the rest of the world.

3) Another thing I notice is that people trust each other to a high level in
Norway. In many other parts of the world suspicion and trust grinds on people.
It can imagine it is exaushting dealing with a constant paranoia where other
people, the government, the police etc can never be trusted.

~~~
setrofim_
> 1) Happiness is not as subjective as people think. Research suggest that
> what people state about their own happiness correlates very well with how
> friends and colleagues would describe a person as.

This just means that how happy a person feels correlates well with how happy
others perceive them to be. This says nothing about whether their subjective
feelings reflect objective reality.

Research actually seems to suggest that happiness is very subjective, and may
in fact have a strong genetic component[0]. I.e. whether a particular person
is happy is dictated less by their circumstances and more by their
outlook/personality/genetics. Of course, one's circumstances also play a role
(e.g. a person will be less happy immediately after the death of a loved one),
but subjective factors seem to win out overall.

[0] e.g. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-
spotlight/201302/...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-
spotlight/201302/can-happiness-be-genetic)

~~~
thatcat
>happiness is very subjective, and may infact have a strong genetic component.

I agree that happiness is subjective and personality trait expression may very
well have a genetic component, but I wouldn't dismiss societal and
environmental factors entirely.

For example, inequality and air pollution are also associated with
unhappiness.

[https://news.virginia.edu/content/income-inequality-
increase...](https://news.virginia.edu/content/income-inequality-increases-
unhappiness-study-shows)
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118125955.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118125955.htm)

------
cies
Of course the outcomes of this kind of research are largely dependent on way
it is designed.

There is a similar study that finds Latin American countries to be among the
happiest. Discussed here:

[http://www.livescience.com/50209-happiest-countries-latin-
am...](http://www.livescience.com/50209-happiest-countries-latin-america.html)

~~~
jernfrost
As someone living in Norway who has been quite interested in the subject and
read a lot about it. My understanding is that nordic countries tend to come at
the top, not because people are jumping around with joy in the streets. More
likely to find that in South America or Africa. Nordic happiness is a mild
happiness. It is really about having few people very dissatisfied with life
rather than having super happy people.

There is little of the social conflict, poverty, health problems etc which
plague many other countries.

That is what these things measure. Latin American countries would typically
get pulled down because there is a signifiant portion of people who don't have
very nice lives. This is what I've heard from foreigners living in northern
Europe. They notice that there are very few people you observe who look
genuinely dissatisfied with their life.

~~~
aedron
Very true. I bet Scandinavia ranks highest in 'average happiness', but much
lower in 'peak happiness', if that makes sense. There is a kind of oppressive
atmosphere here where you are expected to subdue yourself, like it is a sin to
stick out in a positive way (how dare you make the rest of us feel worse off
with your success).

~~~
dguaraglia
I concur with jamesblonde. American culture is very particular in that it
_encourages_ bragging and self-aggrandizing as a good character trait. It
takes a while to get used to that when moving to the US. As a simple example a
very good friend of mine had issues with interviewing for jobs because she'd
understate her achievements. She'd be asked "so what's your experience with
Photoshop and Illustrator" and she'd say "well, I've used them a lot and I'm
comfortable with them." An American with half her experience would confidently
say "I'm an expert." It took a lot of cajoling to get her to be less modest -
at least while interviewing.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
I've been told before that I understate my skills and capabilities in my
resume, but I state things to a degree that I'm comfortable with.

I think the problem arises from most resumes being BS, so if your resume
doesn't claim you have 20 years experience in a 5-year-old technology, etc.,
recruiters probably think you're a complete loser. Well, that and the fact
that most recruiters don't seem to have the reading comprehension of a dead
badger...

------
mistermann
1\. Norway 146. Yemen 2\. Denmark 147. South Sudan 3\. Iceland 148. Liberia
4\. Switzerland 149. Guinea 5\. Finland 150. Togo 6\. Netherlands 151. Rwanda
7\. Canada 152. Syria 8\. New Zealand 153. Tanzania 9\. Australia 154. Burundi
10\. Sweden

Will be interesting to see how spots 7, 8, 9 hold up going forward as
many/most middle class people in these 3 countries increasingly find they
cannot afford even a very modest home within reasonable commuting distance of
work.

For example:

[http://www.greaterfool.ca/2017/03/17/outta-
here/](http://www.greaterfool.ca/2017/03/17/outta-here/)

"My wife, daughter and myself currently live in Newmarket in a detached home
that we purchased our home in late 2014 for $590,000 and it’s worth $1.1
million. That’s quite the profit in 2.5 years. So an option we are leaning
towards is selling, and then renting for until we are ready to leave town and
go north or east."

If it was just single family homes in prime areas it might be understandable,
but the "bubble", or whatever it is, is now creeping into rent, leaving
nowhere to hide.

~~~
sn41
I am an Indian who have lived for a while in NZ. Please do not chug on this
Kool-Aid that NZ is not corrupt. Part of the reason why real estate in
Auckland is overpriced is because the government deliberately does not
formulate a legislation that forbids non-residents from buying up property.
Please petition for this reasonable legislation. Who does the current policy
enrich?

It is your country. I think you should fight for it. Corruption comes in all
shapes and sizes, and underhanded disenfranchisement is the insidious form it
takes in NZ.

~~~
mistermann
Oh, as a Canadian I fully agree, the exact same thing happening to you is
happening to us as well. In Vancouver, upper class neighborhoods hollowed out
by empty unmaintained multi-million dollar homes, condo towers pitch black at
night, high end sports cars with N (new driver) stickers, horrendous traffic
as (speculation) it seems people can buy a driver's license without first
learning how to drive, etc.

Popular opinion is that eventually the bubble will pop, but unless China
itself pops, I think their economy is so relatively large that "this time
really is different", if you don't own by now you, and your offspring, really
will be priced out forever. It's a depressing realization.

As for fighting for your country.....as usual, it is the boomers who
overwhelmingly own property, and it is boomers who show up at the polls on
election day. Voters _love_ making 10% to 30% tax free on their massively
leveraged investments, they'll never vote for any policy that would threaten
that.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Vancouver is enacting a tax on empty homes
[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of-
vanco...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of-vancouver-
approves-empty-homes-tax-1.3853542)

~~~
cgh
Too little, much too late. And it's pocket change to the people who are
buying.

------
nkrisc
After visiting Norway in the summer, the only thing that would give me pause
with regards to living there is the winter. I live at 41°N right now and I
think winter has to much darkness. Imagining the opposite of the Norwegian
summer I experienced is a bit much for me.

~~~
Vinkekatten
I'll be honest, it's a little rough. Around late december, the darkest part of
the year, I barely see sunlight for a month or two. I'm at work by 8:30, sun
rises 10. I leave work at 16:00, sun sets 14:00.

It gets better though, so by february the worst bit is over. It's not really
that awful - you really get a physical sense of the year progressing, and in a
sense the darkness is cozy. Lots of light in the cities, starry skies in the
countryside. Get some solarium tan going and spend a week or two of vacation
time in warmer parts of the world and it's not at all bad.

~~~
mstade
For me as a Swede, January is the hardest month. November and December when it
gets real dark aren't too bad, you have Christmas and all that to both
literally (what with all the lights) and figuratively light everything up. But
then January comes around, Christmas is over, the lights all or mostly come
down in the first or second week, and you're a couple of months away from any
kind of spring rearing its head, with nothing to keep you afloat in the
meantime through all that darkness.

I'm not gonna lie, it's tough. January is my least favorite month in the
nordic countries.

As soon as February comes around things start getting better though. There's
optimism in the air that while it's still cold and snowy (possibly even colder
than January) spring is just around the corner. There's also plenty of winter
sports around February and early March, such as the Vasa race[1], which is
always fun.

Come April and May, when spring is in full force, the optimism reaches a fever
pitch, culminating with midsummer eve in June. This is a huge part of the
build up to the nordic summer, which is the most amazing thing you'll
experience – in great contrast to the deep darkness of winter, the light
simply never ends! If you're way up north, this is literal since the sun never
actually sets. It's quite a sight.

Still, I've lived in other parts of the world with different climates and I
wouldn't trade the nordic climate for anything. Like you say, the physical
sense of the year progressing is something special, and even to the point that
I almost get depressed without it. Certainly, if I miss the nordic summer I'm
gutted.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet)

------
stagbeetle
For anyone interested in the full report: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/sdsn-
whr2017/HR17_3-20-17.pdf](https://s3.amazonaws.com/sdsn-
whr2017/HR17_3-20-17.pdf)

The U.S is 14th.

~~~
agentgt
I guess it is not a surprise that North Korea is missing from the list. I am
just surprised they didn't mention that though in the report (via a quick
command-f).

~~~
ino
There's an interesting interview where a North Korean refugee in South Korea
says that the people in NK are happier than those in SK. It's in part 2 of the
following series.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc)
(part 1)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmzpMP3bEE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmzpMP3bEE)
(part 2)

------
acchow
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.... but they're also incredible wealthy. I'm not
saying money can buy happiness, but it pretty much can.

~~~
Yaggo
Norway and United States have very similar GDP per capita. The important
difference is that in Nordic countries the money has been divided more
equally.

~~~
misja111
Norway's GDP per capita is quite a bit higher:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

Judging by the top entries in this list, GDP PP is a pretty good happiness
predictor.

~~~
matt4077
There's some good data on this. I seem to remember happiness responding to
income up to about $80k/year and the curve continuing rather flat above that
sum.

------
nabla9
That's what you get when you combine oil riches, Nordic model and coastline
designed by Slartibartfast.

~~~
harryh
How does the coastline help? I've never heard this explanation before.

~~~
pvdebbe
The coastline is required to make a nice-ish reference to THHGTTG.

~~~
erelde
Aka more simply as H2G2, "the" and "to" aren't required in an acronym.

~~~
doc_gunthrop
Except nobody ever refers to it as "H2G2".

Using acronyms already adds some degree of ambiguity; shortening a commonly
used acronym makes it basically unrecognizable, even when used within the
proper context.

~~~
asavadatti
H2G2 is a pretty common acronym. In fact I've only heard it referred to as
H2G2 or Hitchhiker's Guide.

------
officelineback
I've always been borderline obsessed with Finland and Norway. It's easy to say
the US should be more like them but they have the big advantage of being much
smaller and MUCH more culturally homogeneous.

~~~
tajen
> and much more culturally homogeneous

Isn't diversity supposed to be a chance?

~~~
Belphemur
It's a double sided sword.

You have a harder time getting people to agree on policies and ideas when
different culture are involved.

------
zdean
I wonder if the lack of ethnic diversity in the "happier" countries is a
contributing factor:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-
countries/?utm_term=.d5df93ee526b)

~~~
fergie
Other people have mentioned Japan, but you could look at basically any eastern
european state to see lots of ethnically pure, yet miserable populations.

EDIT: those countries are getting better, but still...

~~~
taway_1212
Most of them are recovering from communism, and cleaning up the economic and
social damage will take a long time.

~~~
zdean
That. And not to forget that many of the countries that are left over are the
failed attempt to have different ethnic/cultural groups exist under one
umbrella (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia)...not
unlike the pressure in places like Iraq, Syria, etc that we see today.

------
krystiangw
Norway is great country to live. And IT jobs salaries are almost as good as in
US ~ $100k
[https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;qu...](https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;query=;location=Norway)

~~~
marvin
Norwegian developer salaries are not nearly at US levels. Been improving the
last few years though. In the biggest cities, they might be competitive with
some large-ish cities in the US.

------
victornomad
I find these studies so biased. Asking questions trying to figure out how
positive a person is, its just a bit non sense without taking into account
culture.

Im from south Europe where in my opinion we are quite happy, but at the same
time we love to complain. Its just cultural, it doesnt mean that we hate our
lifes, we just like to be negative some times :) I lived as well in a few
countries of that list and I cannot say they are happier. I think they act
happier.

Answering a "How are you today?" question differs among countries

In some countries people answer "awesome, and you?" and perhaps he/she just
broke up with the couple.

In some other countries you would answe "Man, I feel so unlucky and terrible"
but actually you just won lottery but rather than a million you got few
thousand euros :)

just cultural... :)

------
jjgreen
It is a fine country, marred only by the difficulty in finding a decent curry.

~~~
arethuza
Making a decent curry isn't that difficult so that's not really an excuse. :-)

------
anothercomment
One of the most depressing things I ever read is about Norwegians not having
good ideas for spending their money, so the tend to opt for buying second and
third holiday homes. I mean I am sure having holiday homes provides a certain
degree of happiness, it was just the mundaneness and banality of the human
condition that depressed me about it.

~~~
olavk
If you have experienced the nature in Norway, you will understand having
holiday cottages is a nice way to spend money.

~~~
anothercomment
One or two, yes - but three? As I said, for sure it provides some happiness.
But the lack of ideas is simply depressing.

A similarly depressing thing I read is about people in Second Life simply
recreating the houses they dream about in real life, despite having infinite
possibilities.

~~~
exodust
The house you dream about in real life will be more interesting to build in 3D
than a gimmicky "infinite" house.

There is a sense of real architectural visualization work going on. The
process of constructing your dream house in 3D gives you a new way to see the
house outside of your own mind.

------
openasocket
I'm wondering how this squares with the fact that Norway has the 13th highest
suicide rate in the world ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/world/suiciderate.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/world/suiciderate.html)). I know that suicide is often the product of
mental illness rather than general unhappiness, but clearly Norway has a large
number of people with some sort of depressive disorder, which I figured would
lower them in terms of general unhappiness. In fact, most of the countries in
the top 10 of this list have very high suicide rates...

EDIT: I'm an idiot, Norway actually has a rather low suicide rate, please
disregard.

~~~
Someone1234
You claim that they have the "13th highest suicide rate in the world." Do you
have a source for that claim? The linked table only contains 26 countries out
of 196 countries in the world; so you cannot conclude what you conclude based
on that table alone.

PS - What I find interesting about that table is, countries where it is
socially acceptable to complain (and to "be sad") there is less suicide than
in countries where the expectation is to be positive/happy all the time. Just
kind of the inverse of what you'd expect, the UK having a low suicide rate is
hilarious given how self-deprecating of a society we are.

~~~
openasocket
Wow, I feel really dumb right now. I didn't bother scrolling down on that page
and didn't realize how short that list was! Looking at the wikipedia page it's
clear that Norway has a much lower suicide rate in comparison to the rest of
the world.

------
dewyatt
Interesting similarities:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

------
roesel
Is this "how happy are the people in the country" or rather "how happy the
people in the country say they are"? :)

------
barking
Does this explain why the Scandanavian countries are the number one preferred
destination for refugees?

~~~
jernfrost
I think Scandinavian countries have often been more welcome and generous to
refugees. And they often get more rights with respect to citizenship and
assistance in training and working. The big problem with Scandinavia for
refugees is that despite generous welfare programs, there are very few low
skilled jobs. Southern Europe is easier in the regard although they seem to
often be more racist and give less assistance.

The US gives little aid to refugees but has a lot more low skilled jobs, which
they can do.

I know this is subjective but I'd claim Nordic countries are among the worlds
least racist, so it makes it easier for foreigners. But let me qualify that. I
think in Canada and the US you probably find a bigger chunk of the population
without any kind of prejudice more ready to higher foreigners. Rather my claim
as that extreme racism is very rare in Scandinavia. There might be a
prevalence of a mild form of prejudice. But I think e.g. despite the US being
in many areas more open minded you can have a lot more extreme bigotry and
hatefulness towards minorities.

E.g. stuff like Neonazis and white supremacists is something I can only
remember from the 80s in Norway, while it still seems to be a very real thing
in America.

Londoners and many Brits are probably more open minded than many
Scandinavians, but has Brexit showed there is quite extreme xenophobia alive
and well in Britain which doesn't exist in a comparable form in Scandinavia.

~~~
taway_1212
> Brexit showed there is quite extreme xenophobia alive and well in Britain

Xenophobia is irrational hatred towards foreigners, while Brexiters had very
rational qualms about them (mainly about lowering wages for jobs).

~~~
taway_1212
I always wonder about people who downvote but don't care to (or can't) put
their counterargument in words.

------
gondo
where can i find the full list? why is there no source mentioned/linked in the
article?

~~~
iak8god
The "World Happiness Report" is mentioned by name twice in the article:

[http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/](http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/)

------
miguelrochefort
Must be all those Teslas...

------
fergie
Not so much happy as smug.

------
vasira
It is the most peaceful country in the world as well. To live and settle there
is dream come true for many people.

------
senior_james
Most of the time, people that have more freedom are less happy. I remember
stories I heard about people moving from Soviet Russia to the United States
back in the early 80s. They were unhappy and stressed out because in the
soviet union, they were assigned a job and the government took care of them.
Here in the United States, you had to fend for yourself.

Freedom isn't always pleasant and happy, but it's better for the future of
humanity. I've been all over the world and don't know anywhere that has as
much freedom as the US.

~~~
elastic_church
Any particular state in mind?

~~~
freehunter
In general most states in the US are very similar to each other in terms of
laws. There are some newsworthy exceptions, but in most people's day-to-day
lives, basically every state is going to be the same with regards to laws and
freedoms.

The biggest difference you'll see is different cultures, but a culture doesn't
tend to define itself by the state. Most cultures in the US are centered
around geographical region (West Cost, Deep South, Midwest, etc) and even then
vary wildly based on the city you're in (Buffalo is very different from NYC,
Sacramento is very different from San Fransisco, Portland is very different
from Eugene, etc).

