South Africa has been ranked 105th on the World Happiness Report of 2018.
The report, prepared by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), draws its results from surveys done between 2015 and 2017 in 156 countries.
The countries were ranked according to their scores for things such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
The result shows that Finland is the happiest country, followed closely by fellow Nordic nations Denmark and Norway.
Speaking at the Vatican where the report was released, the head of the SDSN, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of New York’s Columbia University, said the Nordic countries were holding the lead in the happy stakes where as the United States was dropping down the list. Sachs cited a social crisis of “more inequality, less trust, less confidence in government” as being the main reasons for the decline.
The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year. Britain was 19th and the United Arab Emirates 20th.
Burundi is at the bottom of the happiness index. – Additional reporting Reuters
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