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.
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.
> 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.
>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.
I do know from personal experience that being open (like super open) about your feelings, and in particular, complaining about one's personal condition, is a bit more muted in Norway vs. say, USA.
But I guess one could argue such an attitude might actually make you happier, in addition to merely appearing happier on reports? Who knows...
I believe one of the keys to happiness is simply appreciating what you have. I've met people that live very comfortable lives but are perpetually miserable because nothing is ever enough for them.
At times, I think social media helps perpetuate this unhappiness, especially when we have a tendency to only showcase the best in public. Getting married. Having a kid. Happy moments. Vacations. Career achievements. Keeping up with the Joneses has been a term for over a 100 years.
Fantastic events are wonderful to see in small doses, but when it's a constant stream of oneupsmanship of who is doing better than others, it's easy to get caught up and think, "Gee, everyone is leading such incredible lives, why aren't I doing the same?" And to temporarily fill that need by posting something yourself, which only perpetuates the cycle.
I found QoL improvements when I chose to abstain from Facebook in December, specifically an increase in mindfulness and satisfaction with my daily life. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't encourage self-improvement, but I think the stress/angst that can arise from social networks can be counterproductive to ones own journey.
It's incredibly telling when you know people really well that project a model of perfection on Facebook/Instagram whose real life/attitude is an entirely different story. I can't understand how these people justify their untruthful social projection when they know plenty of people that see both sides. The best (maybe worst?) part is all the people that don't know them locally/currently who provide endless gobs of affirmation for how wonderful of a person they are.
It's reasons like these, and the complete waste of time and escapism that has become Facebook in my life that I made a resolution to unfollow everyone except the closest family and friends and delete the mobile app. So far I don't feel like I'm missing anything, and ultimately I think my life has become richer/better for it. If you aren't being paid for it, or finding great joy from it there are much more fulfilling things to kill your time with... reading, the outdoors, time with friends (unglued from the digital world).
Most people aren't intentionally misleading. It is natural to share happy photos, announce births etc. The problem is due to a) it being unnatural to publicly brag about financial problems, divorce, etc, and b) the sheer number of Facebook friends making the same sort of milestone posts, combined with Internet time replacing in-person time where more topics are discussed, resulting in a perception of being surrounded by non-stop happiness.
Interesting. And on the flip side, you have the law of Jante. Or is it OK to proclaim one's self as super happy? Maybe Jante is more about material success?
Starting a business and attempting to make millions, however, is not.
A colleague of mine has a childhood friend who owns a grocery store. Sensing that business was good, he opened a second grocery store in a neighboring town. It went great until the rest of the town knew he owned two stores -- then they started boycotting the second store, which was quickly forced to close its doors.
Janteloven, the climate and the institutionalized introversion are the worst aspects of Scandinavian life. Other than that, things are all in all very good.
I think you misunderstand Janteloven. Scandinavian countries are capitalist societies (even if Americans believe the health care and high tax makes us socialist) and prosperity and success based on hard work or talent is generally appreciated - as long as you "keep both feet on the ground" which means don't act if you are "better than other people" and pay your tax.
I suspect something else was going on with your friends second store, since successful stores growing into chains is a pretty common. Did people officially boycott the store or is it just his interpretation of events?
People in town were literally talking to each other saying it's not right that one guy owns two stores and makes so much money, encouraging each other to shop elsewhere. This was in Ørsta in Sunnmøre.
Obviously there is some geographic and socio-cultural variation; you wouldn't see the same degree of skepticism among most people in the biggest cities, but I am pretty confident I haven't misunderstood what Janteloven says. It's not a positive thing, and not conductive to an environment of high performance.
Granted, things might be better now than when I went to public school 15 years ago, but back then this attitude was practically institutionalized. I eventually went to private school after 3 years of being forced to sit through science classes of stuff I already knew, that were regardless torpedoed by uncontrollable classroom clowns. In private school, we had "choose your level" classes, and things improved. Many friends in university had similar experiences.
It was quite a surprise to hear of high schools in the US that actually cultivated students who wanted to learn more than the minimum.
The Law of Jante is not about success as such, and not really about criticizing success either. It is a law that says you should not pretend you are better than your peers. If success makes you act as if you are actually better than other people (bragging, acting arrogant, or just publicly suggesting that you actually deserve the success) you are met with disapproval. But the disapproval is not towards the success itself, but towards acting differently because of it.
It might be too long since I read Aksel Sandemose's "En flyktning krysser sit spor", which is where the Law of Jante originates, but if you read the 10 commandments of Jante, I think you are a bit on the soft side in your interpretation. :)
The book is extremely harsh, but I don't really think the law as expressed in the book is applicable to Scandinavian culture in general.
Also, the Law of Jante made him kill a sailor at a deserted bay in Newfoundland. So we should be careful when understanding the book as some universal sociological study.
In the book he states the law is a way for the lower classes to keep each other down, and he explicit states the law of Jante exists among the proletariat everywhere and is stronger in Brooklyn than in Jante (the fictional Scandinavian town in the book). He was a socialist, of course.
I do think a "soft form" of the law can be used to understand Scandinavian culture to some extent.
I'd imagine when you're given a study like this it doesn't have any clues that the context of such a study should be taken in the rest of the world. That would be a huge methodological failure on the part of the study.
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.
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).
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.
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...
That oppresive cultural phenomenom you refer to is called 'modesty' (Jantelag in Sweden - Jante's law). I also experience it in rural ireland - 'dont get too big for your boots', 'dont let it go to his/her head' (although rank selfishness is still socially acceptable in catholic rural ireland as long as you make up for it with by being a 'character'). Selfishness doesn't fly in Sweden.
Modesty plays an important role in social cohesion, as studies show that relative wealth, not absolute wealth is important in how people feel about themselves.
That's in line with the question that was asked: "The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?"
Which has an implicit assumption that happiness = living your "best possible life".
There are definitely people in Africa, Latin America, etc, who recognize they may have better prospects elsewhere, but if they're content with where they are… isn't that happiness too?
Exactly what I thought, in some cultures asking somebody if they are happy on a 10 scale ladder, will result in high values because the culture's norm is to be positive. While in some other countries the social norm is to be pessimistic. But in the end those pessimistic countries wouldn't be a good place to be happy anyways :p
No, it's not about pessimism optimism. I some cultures (often, on the same country), people rate very high even if they have a moderately negative opinion because anything but the very highest available ratings is seen as saying "unacceptably bad", while in other cultures they tend to rate low even with a moderately positive opinion because high ratings are seen as, well, high praise.
It's not pessimism vs. optimism, it's that numeric ratings have no intrinsic, universal mapping to feelings, and cultures tend to map them differently.
"Glad I speak to you! I'm doing super, and in fact I'm delighted to let you know that I have just inherited 500.000 USD from my grandfather. Now if you could help me transfer this fortune out of the country, I can share a good part of it with you."
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Cc. As a vancouver resident (north shore) I'll confirm all of that. This is a hollow city. Im in my car waiting for an 8am with a client. Buildings are quiet, traffic light.
Corruption does come in all shapes and sizes, but what you just described doesn't sound like corruption to me.
Selling off properties to foreign owners isn't necessarily bad policy (it can bring in foreign capital, that is then transferred to a local owner or resident)
If you label every policy you dislike as the result of "corruption" you're not doing the fight against actual corruption any favours.
Highlighting NZ as exemplary is exactly the sort of reward that politicians need to be immune to attempts of corruption. It also creates an environment where people who go into public service do so with a concept of self that has "is not corrupt" as one strong component.
>the government deliberately does not formulate a legislation that forbids non-residents from buying up property.
This is not even remotely corruption.
I'd be interested in a city in a first world country that that actually downright forbids non-residents/foreigners from buying property. I very much doubt one exists.
We have the exact same policy in the United States. Anyone can pick up a phone and buy realestate.
No one calls it corruption here. It's just capitalism? This has bothered me for years. I first learned about it in a realestate law class. My hand went straight up. Nothing has changed.
(They passed a feel good measure about a year ago that supposedly vets the money. I can't think of a country I can own realestate with a money transfer.)
A very high tax when the owner is not in the country and also isn't renting the property at fair market value. Basically, you should use the property somehow rather than merely hoarding, storing, and withholding the property from its purpose. If it's not being used, the tax would be a total obscenity. Punitive. e.g. 90% tax on the profit of the home sale. If you're a foreigner parking money in real estate, not using that real estate, and disallowing it to be used? Thank you for your contribution to our society. Pay up.
Proof of living in the residence is necessary for some kinds of loans, so it's not a new concept. And the tax can be settled once every X years (maybe 3), or at home sale.
Plenty of affordable places, just not near Toronto or Vancouver. If I wanted a less exciting life I'd buy a two bedroom in Halifax or Quebec City.
Take a look at Saint-Roch in Quebec City, for example. Two bedroom hip condo is around $200k. No car necessary, just walk around to buy stuff. In Halifax it would be around $240k for something downtown and walkable. In Toronto you'd be paying around $800k for these types of places.
I agree that there is a bubble, but it's mostly in BC and the GTA, everywhere else still seems like it hasn't jumped the shark.
Indeed, there are still some places in the country where you can purchase a home for a reasonable amount. Anywhere remotely desirable however has seen a tremendous decrease in affordability (median price vs median income).
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.
As a Norwegian I absolutely hate the winter. It is my number ONE complaint about this country. I have for decades considered moving to some other country, but I never seem to be able to find a good alternative candidate. So many countries with nice climates are so broken in all sort of other important ways.
I did plan many years ago to settle in America, but I found it hard to accept the values of American society. While still immensely fascinated by America, and envious of the opportunities, climates etc afforded Americans, I have a hard time stomaching the rampant materialism, shallowness, and disregard for the lesser off. The revenge and punishment oriented nature of American society puts me off. It has too many rules, which are too harshly and inhumanely enforced.
Spain was an option too, but with the massive unemployment, low salaries and the fact that I don't speak Spanish, it isn't an obvious choice. But I've decided I am going to try to learn some Spanish. Maybe if I can run my own business I don't have to care about low salaries.
The US is a very large and culturally heterogenous country. While some of your concerns are valid, I suspect you will find much in common with people living in liberal coastal cities like SF, NYC, Boston, etc.
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.
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.
It's not too different in London, to be honest. In December the sun is only up at 8, during which time a lot of people are underground on the tube, and by 6 the sun has set again when we're doing the reverse journey.
A lot of Norwegians go on vacation during the Winter; not unlike migratory birds flying south! Being able to afford vacation, and having government/employer support for it, probably has some impact on the happiness ratings.
That's a great point, I hadn't considered that (being an American). I was only there for two weeks, one in Oslo and the other in Bergen, but it was a fantastic country. The sheer amount of daylight in the summer was pretty great as well. Some day I'll go back in the winter to see the Northern lights and some starry skies.
They do have one of the last truly representative governments left in the world though. Really cool system that hasnt been captured by big money interests and seems unlikely to be corrupted by the same any time soon
As a dual Norwegian/American citizen, I would posit that a lot of that has to do with scale (ie, scale is necessary, though certainly not sufficient). The Norwegian government is on the same scale as many American municipal governments! And then you have local governments under that, that are obviously much smaller and thus even more hyper-local than many of their American counterparts. The larger your state gets, the more layers of abstraction and distance you get between the ruling class and the population, the more you dilute the power of an individual vote, and decrease the sense of connection between ruler and ruled.
And why many of us are fearful of becoming a EU member, and strongly dislike how much our politicians bend over backwards to implement EU directives via the EEA agreement.
Indeed, and this is why natality is an important topic for democracy. It's not just a matter of resources. Everything is easier to manage with less people, meaning more transparency, fairness and equality. The fact that we are not over populated doesn't mean we should not think seriously about decreasing our population size. It's probably a requirement to make the system evolve.
An alternate interpretation is that devolving political control to the smallest possible unit is an available option regardless of a land mass' total population size.
Exactly, yet somehow larger and larger entities are naturally assumed to be the goal. Probably driven by the same capitalist logic the drives business.
However well Norwegian government works, it cannot do much about profits increasingly escaping to multinational megacorps who are taxed in a tax haven. Since corporations are global and sometimes more powerful than states, there are real disadvantages with going for more power to local governments.
A more just society means a harder life for profit driven structures. That's just the way it is : the more you want to benefit all, the less you can concentrate resources.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Using acronyms already adds some degree of ambiguity; shortening a commonly used acronym makes it basically unrecognizable, even when used within the proper context.
It may actually have a bit of truth in it: The fractal coastline allows for many more coastline properties than the straight coasts of, say, South Africa.
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.
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...
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.
This is a strange conclusion from the data provides. One counterexample is Switzerland (4th): "Switzerland and Australia, with about a quarter of their population born outside the country, are the two countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in the western world." [1]
The largest immigrant groups in Switzerland are from Italy and Germany--countries with which Switzerland has close ethnic and linguistic ties. Same thing with Australia. By far the largest foreign-born groups in Australia are from the U.K. and New Zealand, again countries with which Australia has close ethnic and linguistic ties.
Canada seems to be second from the top in that scale (though I have no idea how you would choose the scale for a chart of "ethnic diversity"), and only 7th from the top of this "happiness survey".
I don't think either dataset is gathered reliably, but if you're looking at a correlation there, there are glaring exceptions.
As somebody who lives in Canada, I think cultural compatibility is important, but ethnic homogeneity is unnecessary. Ethnicities are generally a proxy for cultures, Canada has a great deal of success in separating the two, though the prime minister doesn't seem to get it.
Anyway, not a hard-and-fast opinion, but I think ethnicity is a weak bond, and probably should be.
Why is this considered a reasonable factor that's often brought up in discussions rather than other somewhat unique aspects of their government and society?
Because making it possible for ethnically/racially/culturally diverse groups to live happily together is and has historically been a major challenge. So a country that has immigration policies that promote homogeneity will avoid many of those challenges. It's certainly not the only factor...but I can't imagine that it doesn't play a major role.
I gave it 4 days and I still think it's a rhetorical Trojan horse for white nationalism. I've quite literally never seen that argument trotted out in any other context.
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.
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 :)
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.
Likely for most families you do not need to go back many generations to find a farmers origin.
For those it was not unusual to have some kind of cabin in the hills (4 walls and a roof, not much more than to keep the weather at bay) used for hunting and such.
So the idea of having a cabin to retreat to is ingrained.
In recent years though it seems to have taken on a bit of a caricature of itself as monied interests have taken to build clusters of "cabins" that are as well equipped as full on houses and selling them. You may liken it to tract housing.
And most of these are not bought with straight up money, but debt. One thing to note is that most of the top entries on the happiness list also are up top on the list of household debt, where housing and similar loans make up a big part.
Most of the nations, Norway included, is likely to have their own variant of a "subprime crisis" sooner rather than later.
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.
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.
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). 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.
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.
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.
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.
Both may be the result of similar policies, i. e. rather generous benefits for people in need.
For residents, it contributes to happiness to know that getting cancer would not just be life-threatening, but may also cost you your job, house, and savings.
For refugees, Scandinavia usually puts them up in modest apartments, provides a stipend in cash that covers necessities, and has a lot of programs to get them into work. The risk of your place going up in flames during the night is also a bit lower than elsewhere.
Other countries put refugees into rather filthy mass shelters, with just rows and rows of a hundred cots to sleep and instead of cash there's catering bought for $1 per meal.
>Other countries put refugees into rather filthy mass shelters, with just rows and rows of a hundred cots to sleep and instead of cash there's catering bought for $1 per meal.
Germany, in some jurisdictions to varying degrees. The shelters were/are mostly temporary because there just wasn't room for a million Syrians in 2015.
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.
It's not a very good example. The USSR was a totalitarian paternalistic state that deprived people of many basic freedoms and opportunities. The state guaranteed job and housing only because it took everything else. To an extent, the Soviet people had modified behavioral patterns and mentality. When migrated to the States, they brought all the thinking patterns they were taught in the USSR without having proper survival skills. They did have hard times adjusting to the West civilization, but I wouldn't rely on their opinion when it comes to freedom and happiness. In their case freedom and happiness were not correlated.
> 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.
What does this have to do with freedom? It's about having basic safety nets for your citizens. "Freedom to fail", which is what you're describing, exists wherever you want it to exist so the country and even society is irrelevant.
> I've been all over the world and don't know anywhere that has as much freedom as the US.
Yes, it's nice to be affluent in the United States.
It's called the Paradox of Choice. More choice/freedom, means people are less happy, because they are constantly trying to maximize purchases/life. Ends up just making you miserable.
"Freedom" is completely orthogonal to having to worry about basic needs. You can guarantee every citizen's basic comfortable survival, and still have a great deal of personal freedom and even a market economy. It just means moderately high taxes and the government owning a lot of capital.
The world's post-industrial history is extremely short, and everything we've seen thus far is some kind of historical accident. Other futures are always possible.
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).
Which is why I prefixed a sentence saying that I am not a citizen of NZ. Despite that, I feel sad for the people in the country who believe that the economic system must not be questioned even when it is clearly working against them.
When the housing prices are clearly out of the pockets of the average earner in a country, it is just economic fanaticism to not do something about it.
In the US, I've heard that you can be eligible for a home-loan for up to 3 times your annual earning (someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this.) This gives a quantitative measure. Take the number of houses which are priced more than 3 times the median earning of a neighborhood. If too many of these houses are owned by foreigners who are not residents, then legislation is called for.
I know it's not free market economics, but I do not believe in needless misery.
I know it says "subjective happiness" in the report, but I still suspect it might be an influence.