Bahrain climbs up in World Happiness Report

Manama : Bahrain climbed up a place in this year’s World Happiness Report.

The Kingdom is ranked 41st in the report that assessed  overall ‘happiness’ of nations around the world. 

The report published by the UN’s Sustainable Development Solution Network is supported by a three-year grant from the Ernesto Illy Foundation. 

The report found that “all of the top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance.”

UAE was ranked the happiest country in the Gulf region,  while it was ranked 21st internationally. Qatar was ranked 35th, Saudi Arabia 37th, and Kuwait 39th. 

Norway was termed as the happiest country in the world. The Scandinavian country surged from fourth place in last year’s UN assessment all the way to the top spot. Other top countries on the list included Nordic neighbors Denmark and Iceland, as well as Switzerland.

Rounding out the top 10 were Finland, in fifth place, The Netherlands (6), Canada (7), New Zealand (8) and Australia and Sweden tied for 9th.

Syria at 152nd and Yemen at 146th were ranked as some of the least happiest in the world.

Another major country, China, has made major economic strides in recent years. But its people are not happier than 25 years ago, the report found. China ranked 79th in the study of 155 countries.

The United States slipped to number 14 because of less social support and greater corruption -- the very factors explaining why Nordic countries fare better on the happiness scale.

Among the 20 largest losers, five were in the Middle East and North Africa and five were in sub-Saharan Africa.