Israel was the 11th-happiest country in the world in 2015, according to the annual World Happiness Report.
Israel was ranked as the 11th happiest country in the world in the latest World Happiness Report. This is the third consecutive year that Israel received this high ranking, after reaching 14th in the first 2012 report.
Israel placed ahead of the US, ranked 13th, the United Kingdom at 23rd place and France at 32nd place.
The report’s top 10 happiest countries this year are Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway, followed by Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden.
The report’s 10 least happy countries are Madagascar, Tanzania, Liberia, Guinea, Rwanda, Benin, Afghanistan, Togo, Syria and Burundi.
The World Happiness Report is a survey of 156 countries and the state of global happiness.
The report of 2016 was released Wednesday in Rome in advance of UN World Happiness Day, marked on March 20.
The happiness scale was compiled using several factors, including GDP per capita, life expectancy, freedom of choice, generosity, perceptions of corruption, and social support. The report is published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative of the United Nations launched in 2012 that promotes sustainable development on local, national, and global scales.
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Leading experts across fields – economics, psychology, survey analysis, national statistics, health, public policy and more – describe how measurements of well-being can be used effectively to assess the progress of nations.
“The reports review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness. They reflect a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness as a criteria for government policy,” the report authors wrote.
Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University, one of those behind the report, says that happiness and well-being should be on every nation’s agenda.
“Human well-being should be nurtured through a holistic approach that combines economic, social and environmental objectives,” he said in a statement before the World Happiness Report 2016 was to be officially presented.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel
AP contributed to this report.