Society World Happiness Report 2018

The new World Happiness Report 2018 was published last week. 156 countries were surveyed. The ranking includes a number of factors such as y: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.

Generosity is based on the question “Have you donated money to a charity in the past month?”. However I fail to see how this impact local happiness, as charities are often international (e.g. scientific research) or geared toward poorer countries.

The survey also includes what they call "Positive affect" (defined as the average of previous-day affect measures for
happiness, laughter, and enjoyment) and "Negative affect" (defined as the average of previous-day affect measures for worry, sadness, and anger). These two are averaged in the Dystopia category, which is the biggest component of the Happiness Index.

Here is the top 25.

1. Finland (7.632)
2. Norway (7.594)
3. Denmark (7.555)
4. Iceland (7.495)
5. Switzerland (7.487)
6. Netherlands (7.441)
7. Canada (7.328)
8. New Zealand (7.324)
9. Sweden (7.314)
10. Australia (7.272)
11. Israel (7.190)
12. Austria (7.139)
13. Costa Rica (7.072)
14. Ireland (6.977)
15. Germany (6.965)
16. Belgium (6.927)
17. Luxembourg (6.910)
18. United States (6.886)
19. United Kingdom (6.814)
20. United Arab Emirates (6.774)
21. Czech Republic (6.711)
22. Malta (6.627)
23. France (6.489)
24. Mexico (6.488)
25. Chile (6.476)

Not too many surprises here, except maybe the good scores of Costa Rica (but it has been ranking well for years), Mexico and Chile compared to their GDP and life expectancy. Costa Rica, Mexico and other Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua) perform exceptionally well (better than most Western countries) for the Dystopia score, meaning that their subjective happiness can be high despite corruption, lower life expectancy and lower material wealth than rich countries.

The Czechs rank much higher than the Spaniards, Italians or any other Slavic or Baltic country. Once again, it is because of their positive attitude to life (Dystopia score).

Some developed countries perform surprisingly poorly for their level of development.

34. Singapore (6.343)
36. Spain (6.310)
47. Italy (6.000)
51. Slovenia (5.948)
54. Japan (5.915)
57. South Korea (5.875)
61. Cyprus (5.762)
63. Estonia (5.739)
69. Hungary (5.620)
76. Hong Kong SAR, China (5.430)
77. Portugal (5.410)
79. Greece (5.358)

Singapore has the highest score of any country for all factors combined except Dystopia. This is a good example of how material wealth does not bring happiness. Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are in the same situation. Japan would have the same overall score as the USA, Germany or Belgium were it not for the Dystopia factor. Hong Kong ranks even higher in statistics, closer to Scandinavian countries, but is even less happy.

In fact, many of the countries that are unhappier than one would expect from statistics have high suicide rates. This is the case of Japan and South Korea, and of Poland, Estonia and Hungary in Europe. South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the developed world after Lithuania. All Northeast European countries have high suicide rates, and that can be partly explained by the climate (and post-communist gloom).

However that is not the case of Southern European countries. Portugal Spain, Italy, Malta, Cyprus and Greece have some of the lowest suicide rates in the developed world. So why is it that the Maltese are so much happier than their Mediterranean neighbours? Except for Spain, all these countries are less happy than most Latin American nations, Poland, Slovakia or Uzbekistan, despite higher levels of development.

What makes it all the more astonishing is that Mediterranean countries enjoy great climates, excellent food and are generally more relaxed cultures taking time to enjoy life (long lunches, siestas, rich sex life, lots of friends, dolce vita). That may be a bit stereotypical, but that is certainly more true than in many other parts of the world. France actually fits in that cultural scene too, and it too performs less well than countries with equivalent levels of development (UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany). So what causes speakers of Greek and Romance languages in Europe to be so negative? Is it down to genetics? Is it because of the economic malaise since the 2008 crisis? (most countries have recovered by now, so it's doubtful). I am at a loss.

UPDATE: Here are the World Happiness maps for 2019 and 2023.

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While I certainly agree with some of your points, especially your observation about Southern Europeans' blunt honesty and Americans' often fake smiles (that could also apply perfectly to Brazil, so maybe it's a New World thing), I don't think it is adequate to measure the mean levels of happiness in any population by looking at the % of the population who have been diagnosed with depression. First of all, there is the decisive issue that in some countries people are much more open than in others to seeking medical help (and are thus diagnosed) and taking pills for some mental condition. I'd say in some countries people are even way too open to the idea of seeking a medical explanation and a medicine for everything they feel, while in others it's considered a last desperate measure or even a shame.

But besides that, there are several causes related to the condition of depression, and some of them don't even have to do with the actual degree of satisfaction or the actual agreeableness (or lack thereof) of people's lives. It actually even seems to me that people with tendencies to depression often feel even more unsupported and isolated when they're in a social environment that doesn't let them be totally honest and feel "normal" despite that.

There is nothing worse than feeling miserable among a bunch of people who are all so glad and cheerful, you feel even more strongly like a loser. Besides, there are demonstrably some genetic causes to depression, especially in several sad cases of people who even claim things like "I know my life is great, I don't have anything to complain about, but I just don't like to live, I don't feel alive" (and the guilt that often comes with that must make their depression even more unbearable).

Some people, for random reasons, may have a higher proportion of people genetically predisposed to depressive conditions and/or humor instability, even when and if the overall society they belong to actually shows high levels of life satisfaction.

I thought I was clear but I guess not. It's precisely my point that temporary gloominess or dissatisfaction caused by transitory (I hope), economic trials or reactions to migration, or any political turmoil have nothing to do either with any imagined genetic "propensity" to happiness, or on the contrary a propensity to "unhappiness" or depression.

Those are the things which ail Southern Europeans, and they express it openly because of a propensity for openness about their dissatisfactions or emotional state, an openness not shared by northern Europeans.

Yes, northern Europeans may be more open about admitting they need and taking medication, but there's nothing subjective about suicide stats. They are the ultimate measure of clinical depression.

Plus, all of this is based on what is essentially an extremely "subjective" thing, which is a "feeling of happiness". What some people call happiness I might call bovine contentment.

As to why the study doesn't address the inherent contradiction concerning "family bonds" in southern Europe versus Latin America, it's because they, in particular, and social scientists in general don't know what they're doing. Most studies cannot be replicated, which should tell us a lot, and part of that is because they are rife with unexamined and uncontrolled environmental factors, among them cultural ones.
 
I thought I was clear but I guess not. It's precisely my point that temporary gloominess or dissatisfaction caused by transitory (I hope), economic trials or reactions to migration, or any political turmoil have nothing to do either with any imagined genetic "propensity" to happiness, or on the contrary a propensity to "unhappiness" or depression.

Oh this being the case then I agree with you. I think that, if there is something, it's more likely the ultimate result of a complex interaction among many cultural, social and even merely circumstantial factors, not something "inherent" in any people's genome - though of course I meant "people" as in "average men and women", because it is of course demonstrated that some people have a higher % of people genetically predisposed to humor and anxiety disorders as well as depression.
 
I thought I was clear but I guess not. It's precisely my point that temporary gloominess or dissatisfaction caused by transitory (I hope), economic trials or reactions to migration, or any political turmoil have nothing to do either with any imagined genetic "propensity" to happiness, or on the contrary a propensity to "unhappiness" or depression.

I disagree with this.

First, unhappiness and depression stats at the national level tend not to correlate. Nordic countries have higher depression and suicide rates than any southern European country, but still rank as the happiest. That's because depression tends to be seasonal (short-term) in Nordic countries, and suicides actually prune the gene pool from less resilient individuals, thus increasing natural optimism and innate happiness over time.

Secondly, there is no way that southern Europeans are currently unhappy as a reaction of mass immigration. As I explained above, all Germanic countries have higher percentages of asylum seekers and immigrants than any southern European country. Germany is an interesting case. According to EU statistics, by 2016 Germany has welcomed over 1.4 million refugees and asylum seekers, more than all other EU countries combined! In contrast, Greece only welcomed 72,000, Spain 28,000 and Portugal a paltry 2,500 individuals. Only Italy had any sizeable number in southern Europe (270.000), but still 19% of Germany's numbers. Even Sweden, with a population 6x smaller than Italy, had about the same number of refugees and asylum seekers (260,000).

What is more interesting is that happiness in Germany actually increased between 2012 and 2018, despite the refugee crisis! The same report using the same methodology ranked Germany 30th in 2012 but 15th in 2018. So, whatever people may think, the refugees have nothing to do with national happiness.

The same is true for the economic situation since all EU countries are better off economically now than they were in 2012, and most have recovered to levels equivalent or higher than before the 2008 financial crisis. Only Greece hasn't recovered, but the situation is nevertheless better than it was 6 years ago. In 2012 unemployment was still rising, but it started decreasing from 2014 and is now lower than in 2012. GDP per capita kept decreasing until 2013, but has continually increased (if slowly) since then.

So the economic situation can't explain why all southern Europeans (except the Maltese) are now considerably unhappier than in 2012, while other Europeans become happier during the same period, even Eastern European countries with stagnating GDP per capita and relatively lots of refugees (much more than Portugal or Spain per capita) like Hungary, Serbia or Bulgaria.

The gloom is Latin countries is caused by something else. The situation is similar in France, which remains the most pessimistic country in the world despite having a solid economy, and one of the lowest gap between the rich and the poor in the world after Scandinavia. The French (and French-speaking Belgians) and other "Latins" are champions of complaining about all and nothing. So I do think that there is an inherent national tendency to pessimism among Romance-language speakers. It may be more of a cultural thing than a genetic predisposition (unlike Nordic happiness, which is undoubtedly the result of 11,000 years of natural selection).
 
Going back to the World Happiness Report 2018, what really stands out the most to me and is perhaps most striking and relevant is how some Latin American countries perform extremely well above their real weight if you consider their main ancestry (Southern European, African and Native American with varying proportions from country to country - and Southern Europe and Africa aren't in general very well positioned in the ranking), their actual levels of social and economic development, and especially their public and private levels of safety (which I'd assumed were very decisive to one's general feelings of happiness in life).

Brazil for example is ranked 75th in the Human Development Index (HDI) and is usually between ~70-80 in almost all relevant social and economic data. But it's still ranked as the 28th happiest country in the world. Mexico performs even better. They aren't exceptions. Most Latin American countries, with few exceptions like unfortunately present-day Venezuela (abnormal temporary conditions, not their usual conditions), perform above what we would expect from them if their social-economic development/happiness factor was similar to that of Southeast Asia, East Asia or Middle East. In the emerging, non-developed world, Latin America is pretty much peerless in terms of overall levels of happiness.

To explain that, the report puts a great emphasis on the particularities of family bonds and formation of social links (friends, workmates, etc.) among Latin Americans, and they seem to believe that those stronger, more intimate/affectionate and closer-knit relations are the "key" to explain the surprisingly high happiness in countries that are not only underdeveloped, but in several cases (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico) very violent and unsafe, in some cases even going through big economic crisis right now (that usually pulls down the level of happiness, and in fact they also did this time, as you can clearly see in the results that Brazil had a big dip in the happiness score after 2014, the start of its present crisis).

Are those patterns of social interaction really that unique (on a worldwide scale) in Latin America? Being Latin American myself, that is just social "life as usual" for me, so I'd be very curious to learn if there is really something very unusual - and, apparently, benefitial - in the way that people in Latin America form relations not only within the family, but also in their work, school, any collective environment.

That's a very pertinent observation. It might be more useful to see whether a country performs higher or lower in happiness than its ranking for socio-economic indicators such as the Human Development Index. Latin American countries indeed perform unusually well, and that is all the truer for Central American countries like:

- Costa Rica : 13th for happiness vs 66th for HDI (+53)
- Mexico : 24th for happiness vs 77th for HDI (+53)
- Panama : 27th for happiness vs 60th for HDI (+33)
- Guatemala : 30th for happiness vs 125th for HDI (+95)
- El Salvador : 40th for happiness vs 117th for HDI (+67)
- Nicaragua : 41th for happiness vs 124th for HDI (+83)
- Belize : 49th for happiness vs 103th for HDI (+54)

In terms of demographics, Costa Rica is mostly Mestizos. Panama only has 12% of Amerindians and 58% of Mestizos. The remaining 30% of Whites, Blacks or Mulattos. Mexico is 17% White, 17% Mestizos and 66% Amerindians. The other countries predominantly have an Amerindian and Mestizo population.

Let's see how Latin American countries with predominantly European populations rank.

- Argentina: 29th for happiness vs 45 for HDI (+16)
- Uruguay: 31th for happiness vs 54 for HDI (+23)
- Chile: 25th for happiness vs 38 for HDI (+13)

They are also happier than their HDI would presuppose, but the gap is much smaller.

That makes me wonder if Native Americans are innately more happy, or whether other factors come into play, such as the climate. Central America is indeed sunnier and warmer than Argentina. Let's compare with other South American countries with high Amerindian populations. Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia have mostly Amerindian or Mestizo populations, with respectively 0%, 6% and 5% of Whites. Peru is more mixed 45% of Amerindians, 37% of Mestizos, 15% of Whites and 3% of East Asians or Africans.

- Ecuador : 48th for happiness vs 89 for HDI (+41)
- Paraguay : 64th for happiness vs 110 for HDI (+46)
- Bolivia : 62th for happiness vs 118 for HDI (+56)
- Peru : 65th for happiness vs 87 for HDI (+22)

Once again, a higher percentage of Amerindian correlate with a higher relative happiness.

As a control, let's see of Central American countries with mostly African population are as happy or not

- Trinidad & Tobago : 38th for happiness vs 65 for HDI (+28)
- Jamaica : 56th for happiness vs 94 for HDI (+38)
- Dominican Republic : 83th for happiness vs 96 for HDI (+13)
- Haiti : 148th for happiness vs 163 for HDI (+15)

They perform well too, but not as well as Amerindian countries. The gaps between happiness and HDI are comparable to those observed in Argentina, Uruguay or Chile, except for Jamaica.

What is interesting is that all Amerindians descend from Paleolithic Siberians, and rather northerly Siberians as they were the people inhabiting the Bering region. So could it be that these Paleo-Beringians also developed some sort of natural resilience and optimism that allowed them to live in extremely cold and dark regions for thousands of years? Is this why all Amerindians now appear to be much happier than they should be for their socio-economic conditions? That is worth investigating.
 
Frankly, I think a lot of it is down to the fact that Mediterranean people feel no sense of shame in admitting they're unhappy, gloomy, depressed, worried, anxious, you name it, and they're also not shy about criticizing their own country, people, you name it, whereas northerners, including Americans of northern extraction just, to be blunt, lie about it in my experience.

Lying about one's feeling and trying to appear more joyful or positive than you really are is typical of North Americans (and Australians), not northern Europeans. If there is one thing you shouldn't do is assume that Amercians are like the Brits or North Europeans. In many respects, Europeans are closer culturally to one another than any country (even the UK) is with the USA. I even wrote a (very popular) article about it.

In fact, British people are known for be whiners who love to complain about everything from the weather to the trains being late or government not doing a good job. German speakers are known for their blunt honesty more than any other group on Earth. Scandinavians also privilege blunt honesty. Overall Europeans are all quite blunt by international standards, compared to North and South Americans, Oceanians, East Asians, South Asians and Africans.

Within Europe, I'd say that Spanish people are the least frank about their feelings. They are all like "We should definitely go to dinner some time!" or "Why don't we play tennis together next week", then you never hear back from them. It's not just based on my experience. In Brussels, which is a microcosm of all EU countries, it's well know that Spaniards are like that. If a German or a Swede tells you we should have dinner next week, you'd better take your schedule and look for a date and time, because they mean it.

As for family and friendship bonds, I wouldn't know how to compare the ones in Italy to the ones in Latin America, having never lived there, but the bonds are very strong in Italy, even today from my relatives and all the people I know, although I see some younger Italians being taught to be ashamed of them by foreign media and visitors.

It is true that South Europeans have strong family bonds than Northern Europeans. The Brits may have the weakest of all family bonds, and children are usually expected to leave the parental home between 16 and 18 years old. The Brits and Dutch also have the highest levels of individualism in Europe. One way it is expressed is by the "gap year' tradition, whereby university-age young people travel 6 months to 1 year (or even 2 years in some cases) around the world as backpackers, as a way to fend on their own, as a kind of rite into adulthood. I have done it too owing to strong British influence, but it is otherwise exceedingly rare in Belgium. In fact, in one year of travelling I have never met another Belgian doing it, while I met hundreds of Dutch and Brits and some Scandinavians. Typical Belgians are actually much closer to South Europeans and children like to stay as long as they can with at their parents, and generally remain close even after they move out. Brits do the opposite, typically choosing a university at the other end of the country (or better abroad) to be as far from one's family as possible. British parents can't wait for their kids to leave the house to have some 'peace and quiet'. Very different cultures.
 
From my experience calling Finland the happiest country simply cannot be true. I agree that Finland is an outstanding country in terms how they organise their public services, education, transport, etc, however, when you make friends with Finns - I meant, they are very good people, very honest - but often so unhappy! after having too much to to drink they would open up their feelings and then you could not even know how to react... so miserable and unhappy they can be...
Also, in terms of defining how happy a nation is or is not, drinking habits could be a good indicator. I think peoples who drink too much (like Finns, for instance) are often deeply unhappy about their life.
 
From my experience calling Finland the happiest country simply cannot be true. I agree that Finland is an outstanding country in terms how they organise their public services, education, transport, etc, however, when you make friends with Finns - I meant, they are very good people, very honest - but often so unhappy! after having too much to to drink they would open up their feelings and then you could not even know how to react... so miserable and unhappy they can be...
Also, in terms of defining how happy a nation is or is not, drinking habits could be a good indicator. I think peoples who drink too much (like Finns, for instance) are often deeply unhappy about their life.

If alcohol consumption per capita is any indication of how happy people are, then the Finns may not be that happy (16th most heavy drinkers worldwide). But I doubt that there is any meaningful correlation. For example, within OECD countries, the people who drink the least alcohol are the Mexicans, Italians, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes.The ranking for those who drink the most are the Czechs, Australians, Portuguese and Slovaks in 2015, but the Austrians, Estonians, Irish, and the French in 2011. So there is no consistency over the years. There is also no regional pattern. The French and Portuguese drink a lot, but Italians drink little. Australians drink a lot, but New Zealanders not so much.

Denmark is right in the middle. Why would the Danes drink considerably more than their Norwegians or Swedish neighbours, but still usually get a higher ranking for happiness?

If you look at the map of alcohol consumption per capita, it is especially Europeans that drink a lot, although I don't think that Europeans are more miserable than other people.

Alcohol_consumption_per_capita_world_map.PNG


And by the way, Lithuanians are 3rd worldwide for alcohol consumption. Does that mean that Lithuanians are among the most miserable people on Earth (and more than the Finns)?
 
What is interesting is that all Amerindians descend from Paleolithic Siberians, and rather northerly Siberians as they were the people inhabiting the Bering region. So could it be that these Paleo-Beringians also developed some sort of natural resilience and optimism that allowed them to live in extremely cold and dark regions for thousands of years? Is this why all Amerindians now appear to be much happier than they should be for their socio-economic conditions? That is worth investigating.

That's really intriguing and worth investigating more, especially considering the ultimate origins of Amerindians, but unfortuntely I think the case of Brazil is exceptional enough to make us really need to find a less straightforward, more multifaceted explanation. That's because the happiness/HDI gap in Brazil is almost as wide as in heavily Amerindian Central American nations like Costa Rica and Mexico (28th in the Happiness Ranking vs. 79th in HDI - +51), but the country is mostly white or in general heavily African-shifted multiracial/mixed people: 47% white, 43% mixed, 8% black, 1% East Asian, less than 1% pure Amerindian.

The situation is also not very favorable to the "Amerindian innate happiness" if you look at the average autosomal DNA of Brazilians, which is a more useful mean of comparison since Brazilians are so mixed that they don't take their multiple ancestral roots too seriously (instead, they classify themselves by the way they look, regardless of ethnic/racial origins). Autosomally, Brazilians are 60-70% European/Asian, 20-25% African, and just 10-20% (mostly ~12-13%) Amerindian.

We'd then have to entertain the possibility that that relatively small Amerindian admixture, around 1/6, was enough to cause the spread of the Amerindian genes for higher levels of optimism and personal wellbeing in just 400-450 years (colonization in Brazil began effectively in 1530). That's totally possible, but it's a bit strange to me that the heavy European admixture, in most cases at or even surpassing 2/3 of the overall ancestry, wouldn't have severely diminished the benefits of Amerindian descent.

That observation of mine is also at least partially true for Costa Rica, the happiest Latin American country, where the specific proportions of their mestizaje were heavily shifted towards European prevalence, with an autosomal DNA showing them to be, on average, 61% European and 9% African, with "only" 30% of Amerindian ancestry, and in the northern part of Costa Rica European ancestry reaches a full 2/3.
 
That's really intriguing and worth investigating more, especially considering the ultimate origins of Amerindians, but unfortuntely I think the case of Brazil is exceptional enough to make us really need to find a less straightforward, more multifaceted explanation. That's because the happiness/HDI gap in Brazil is almost as wide as in heavily Amerindian Central American nations like Costa Rica and Mexico (28th in the Happiness Ranking vs. 79th in HDI - +51), but the country is mostly white or in general heavily African-shifted multiracial/mixed people: 47% white, 43% mixed, 8% black, 1% East Asian, less than 1% pure Amerindian.

The situation is also not very favorable to the "Amerindian innate happiness" if you look at the average autosomal DNA of Brazilians, which is a more useful mean of comparison since Brazilians are so mixed that they don't take their multiple ancestral roots too seriously (instead, they classify themselves by the way they look, regardless of ethnic/racial origins). Autosomally, Brazilians are 60-70% European/Asian, 20-25% African, and just 10-20% (mostly ~12-13%) Amerindian.

We'd then have to entertain the possibility that that relatively small Amerindian admixture, around 1/6, was enough to cause the spread of the Amerindian genes for higher levels of optimism and personal wellbeing in just 400-450 years (colonization in Brazil began effectively in 1530). That's totally possible, but it's a bit strange to me that the heavy European admixture, in most cases at or even surpassing 2/3 of the overall ancestry, wouldn't have severely diminished the benefits of Amerindian descent.

That observation of mine is also at least partially true for Costa Rica, the happiest Latin American country, where the specific proportions of their mestizaje were heavily shifted towards European prevalence, with an autosomal DNA showing them to be, on average, 61% European and 9% African, with "only" 30% of Amerindian ancestry, and in the northern part of Costa Rica European ancestry reaches a full 2/3.

Brazil is a very complicated case because it is so huge and diverse. The ethnic make-up also varies a lot between regions and socio-economic groups, and the small sample of the population that they interviewed for the World Happiness Report may not be representative of the whole population. We also don't know the actual level of European, African and Amerindian admixture among Brazilians because, once again, only a tiny part of the population was DNA tested and therefore only represent one facet of Brazilian society, not the whole picture. If there are considerable regional variations in happiness levels in countries like France or Germany, which are small and homogeneous compared to Brazil, then regional variations within Brazil could potentially be huge.

Brazil is more like the USA. A study on happiness between US States revealed very big regional differences. Minnesota ranked the highest on happiness (not surprising as it has the highest Scandinavian ancestry) with a score of 70.81, while West Virginia ranked last with a score of only 34.89 (less than half!). All Southeastern states (Bible Belt) were at the bottom of the ranking, although that may be for socio-economic reasons as well as old racial tensions in these former Confederate states.

I have compared the happiness ranking in the USA to the percentage of Scandinavian ancestry by state and there is some degree of correlation. It's not just Minnesota (36% of Scandinavian ancestry), but also Utah (2nd for happiness, 15% Scandinavian), Nebraska (5th, 10%), South Dakota (7th, 21%), Iowa (8th, 11.5%), Wisconsin (9th, 13.5%)... Some states can be happy without much Scandinavian ancestry, and that's obviously places like Hawaii and California. The correlation works at the bottom too. Unhappy Southeastern states happen to be those with the lowest Scandinavian ancestry (0.5 to 1.5%).

To be more thorough we should include Dutch, German and even English ancestry, as all have significant Scandinavian ancestry of their own. Overall, Dutch and German ancestry is more common in northern Mid-West to West Coast states, which also happen to be the happiest. Bible Belt states have very little Germanic ancestry, as the first settlers to the region were essentially Irish, Scottish and French (+ Spanish for Florida) and they have also the highest percentage of African ancestry.
 
What I meant about drinking is the kind of bad, dark drinking, when people drink heavy alcohol and a lot, until they almost cannot walk. The overall numbers of alcohol consumption does not fully reflect that, I suppose. One can see that kind of dark drinking with Finns a lot - many people work during the week and seem to be ok, but when during the weekend or on vocation they go into heavy weekend drinking sessions, with the purpose to forget everything around you. This is what I associate with unhappiness. It is truly different with Southern Europeans who love good food and a glass or two of good wine with it.

And yes, I agree that Lithuanians are not among the happiest nations. One of the reasons (or consequences?) for that is this heavy "dark" drinking, especially in country side and especially among men. Besides, suicide rate is also very high, but also among men, which seem to be the most vulnerable part of the society. Historically, during the IIWW and afterwards during long years of partisan war and deportations to Siberian gulags, about 1/3 of the population underwent negative selection - those who were active, bright and took any positions in society were exterminated or had to emigrate - so there is no wonder that the nation of what it is now is difficult to fully recover. I don't know the reasons why Finns drink so much, a pity that Finnish people themselves do not comment about it - if they think they are the happiest nation in the world.
 
Lying about one's feeling and trying to appear more joyful or positive than you really are is typical of North Americans (and Australians), not northern Europeans. If there is one thing you shouldn't do is assume that Amercians are like the Brits or North Europeans. In many respects, Europeans are closer culturally to one another than any country (even the UK) is with the USA. I even wrote a (very popular) article about it.

In fact, British people are known for be whiners who love to complain about everything from the weather to the trains being late or government not doing a good job. German speakers are known for their blunt honesty more than any other group on Earth. Scandinavians also privilege blunt honesty. Overall Europeans are all quite blunt by international standards, compared to North and South Americans, Oceanians, East Asians, South Asians and Africans.

Within Europe, I'd say that Spanish people are the least frank about their feelings. They are all like "We should definitely go to dinner some time!" or "Why don't we play tennis together next week", then you never hear back from them. It's not just based on my experience. In Brussels, which is a microcosm of all EU countries, it's well know that Spaniards are like that. If a German or a Swede tells you we should have dinner next week, you'd better take your schedule and look for a date and time, because they mean it.
So much generalization of people and countries here. Are you Maciamo sure that you are not talking about McDonalds America or TV America. What is up with you Angela and feelings in some of your posts? Who are the Mediterranean people? I work and know a lot of Americans of "northern extraction", and I have some of that in me too. But I work and live with other "extractions" too, in this 325M country. I do not see any established patterns in lying about the feelings. Would you reconsider the use of word lying? I take offense to your statements, especially considering the roles you play in this forum.

How is that for my American expression of feelings?
 
So much generalization of people and countries here. Are you Maciamo sure that you are not talking about McDonalds America or TV America. What is up with you Angela and feelings in some of your posts? Who are the Mediterranean people? I work and know a lot of Americans of "northern extraction", and I have some of that in me too. But I work and live with other "extractions" too, in this 325M country. I do not see any established patterns in lying about the feelings. Would you reconsider the use of word lying? I take offense to your statements, especially considering the roles you play in this forum.

How is that for my American expression of feelings?

Ok, let me rephrase this. There is a cultural tendency for Americans, and New World people in general (Americas, Australia) to be more open, friendly and hypocritical toward strangers, compared to the more reserved and blunt Europeans. I am not the one saying it. That phenomenon was observed by many cultural psychologists. The likely reason is that societies in the New World were built on immigration and people are generally more mobile and very likely to meet people from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. In such a diverse environment it is helpful to be open and sociable to create new connections, as immigrants had to start a new life from nothing and fit with a wide range of different people. But it is also a good idea to keep your beliefs and convictions to yourself to avoid shocking or hurting other people's sensitivities, as it's harder to know what people think and feel in a multicultural environment than in a homogeneous rural community in Europe.

I thought that was common knowledge to most people. That's why I didn't even mention it in my article about cultural differences between Europeans and Americans. That is one of the most defining characteristics of New World people as opposed to Europeans. But I have been studying cultural psychology since my teens (long before genetics), and I realise now that it may not be obvious to people who haven't travelled a lot or don't instinctively feel the urge to analyse the differences between cultural groups as I do.
 
It sounds much better Maciamo, but I do not agree with your comment about Americans being hypocritical towards strangers. I do not care which psychologist said that. My experience of living and working here as a stranger and as an American is very different from what you are stating.

It goes without saying that not everyone is generous or sincere anywhere. Every society has its King Leopold III or that some other distinguished American leader (I am hypocritically smiling now).
 
I am sure you know the story of WWI in Belgium. Imperial Germany was starving your countrymen in the period of 1914 to 1918. There was ocean blockade by Kaiser’s army which took all the food from Belgian people. British tried to help but in the end, most of the help arrived from the other side of the ocean. Some Americans died at sea delivering 5.7M tons of food for all country for four years.

“Belgium floor sucks” and “Food Ship” posters, used to raise the funds and pay for the food, are still on the display at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum in the USA. In Belgium, King Albert's silver medal was created to commemorate that American generosity toward strangers.

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I think you're misunderstanding what that observation really means. It doesn't mean people are evil or fake, but that their social customs that dictate what is polite or not, kind or not, determine that they should sometimes lie about their feelings or hide their opinions. Being hypocritical toward strangers in this sense is not necessarily a problem, I actually pretty much support this "New World" way of dealing with other people very much, and there is no problem for me in not being recognized as a blunt person who's not afraid do disturb, shock or bother others. We just don't tell our minds as often and bluntly as other peoples, and that's fine, we're taught to know when, where and if we should tell everything we think. Brazilians do the same all the time, American peoples as a whole are, yes, whether we/you like it or not, very famed for this well-meaning habit of not telling everything we think and expressing everything we feel in order to avoid conflicts or to avoid unnecessary disagreements. Europeans instead aren't as a whole that afraid of expressing themselves and of being nice to others only if and when they really feel like (not because that's the polite thing to do), they weren't culturally taught to save face by adjusting their behavior to not annoy other people, instead they value their self-expression, self-esteem and indivituality above even things like social peace, good relations with neighbors and mates and their social face, i.e. their reputation as agreeable people to others. This is not a question of being wrong or right, good or evil. It's just a cultural difference related to the prevalence of positive OR negative face in a given culture. Americans and Brazilians value the feeling of being recognized by others as someone who doesn't cause trouble and isn't always looking for an argument, whereas Europeans value the feeling of having privacy and individual space strictly respected and knowing exactly what they and others think in a direct blunt way, regardless of whether that will be pleasant or not, conducive to good social interactions or not.
 
It sounds much better Maciamo, but I do not agree with your comment about Americans being hypocritical towards strangers. I do not care which psychologist said that. My experience of living and working here as a stranger and as an American is very different from what you are stating.

I agree with Ygorcs, who explained it very well. I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by hypocritical. I mean it in a neutral, factual, non-judgemental way (as most of the things I write).

To give you a concrete example, I was raised in a culture in which telling a 'white lie' to spare people's feelings was considered almost as bad as perjury in court. That may be a bit extreme and I learned over time (and by living abroad, especially the UK, Australia and Japan) that white lies are quite acceptable to avoid pointless confrontations. That being said, French and German speakers are known for being very outspoken and blunt and for telling what they things to anyone (from complete strangers to loved ones) as honestly as they can. Some people are more tactful than others, and, depending on their personality, some will even refrain from saying anything if they think it will only lead to confrontation or bad feelings. But the majority of people do believe in the adage that 'honesty is the best policy'. In the USA when people behave like that the behaviour is considered quirky enough to be made into a popular TV series like The Big Bang Theory, with Sheldon's character (well, Sheldon often goes beyond what is socially acceptable even for French and German speakers because he can't recognise people's emotions and and completely lacks tact, but otherwise you get the idea).

When I was an exchange student in Australia I apparently shocked people a lot with my outspokenness and couldn't understand why everyone was so oversensitive . Now I have spent so much time with native English and Japanese speakers that I am just as confortable with both types of communication styles - although ultimately it depends what language I am speaking (or thinking in). Very often behaviour is conditioned by past experiences, but the brain tends to separate those experiences by language, as if each language had its own personality and life experience.
 
Good explanations and comments from both of you. Thank you.
Perhaps I was too focused on a few negative words like "lying" and "hypocritical".
 
I read The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country, and after analysing every aspect of Danish lifestyle, the author had to come to the conclusion that Danes are just naturally happier because of their DNA. The explanation was that Nordic winter is so bleak and lacking in sunlight that a natural selection took place over the centuries and millennia, and only those who had a cheery disposition survived (others died of depression, depression-induced illnesses or committed suicide). That is very likely to be true and explain perfectly why Nordic countries rank the highest in happiness. Finland isn't that rich (25th worldwide in GDP per capita, around the same level as Belgium, France and the UK), nor is life expectancy exceptional (20th worldwide). The country is relatively boring, all flat, with long winters, hardly any history, and no cuisine to speak of. Yet the Finns are ranked as the happiest people on Earth. Like for Denmark there is no better explanation than genetics. Scandinavian people spread their genes with the Germanic migrations, and genes for positive attitude and happiness were passed along with them. That explains why in the happiest Western countries in the list, the ranking follows very closely the percentage of Germanic/Nordic ancestry, with Finland and Scandinavia on top, followed by the Netherlands, countries with high British ancestry (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, besides the UK), Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, then Ireland, France and the Czech Republic. In fact studies about happiness were conducted within Germany and France to see differences between regions. Of course many factors influence regional happiness inside a country, like the sunshine and the local economic situation (East Germans cannot be expected to be as happy as West Germans). Yet, the study about Germany found that the happiest people were those of the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein, just under Denmark, followed by Hamburg - the two regions with the highest Germanic ancestry. The lowest were of course in East Germany. The happiness survey for French regions gave the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (Flanders-Artois, historically a part of Belgium until the late 17th century) as the happiest region of France. This is not a given considering that it is one of the bleakest regions (war fields of WWI), with little sunshine, and one of the worst regional GDP per capita in the country, and the highest unemployment rate anywhere in France. The economic situation is so bad that it has become the home base for Marine Le Pen's Nation Front Party. Yet the region is the happiest, and that surely has something to do with the fact that people have by far the highest Germanic ancestry within France (actually they can't be considered ethnically French, but annexed Low Countries people). Celtic and Roman genes did not undergo the same natural selection for natural optimism. French people were ranked as the most pessimistic in the world in a study published in late 2016, with 88% of the population thinking that their country was going in the wrong direction. Other Latins were also pessimistic, with Mexicans, Brazilians, Italians and Spaniards completing the bottom 5 in the 25 countries surveyed. Another survey by the World Economic Forum in 2015 confirmed the French as both the most pessimistic people (88%) and the least optimistic (3%). Within Europe the most optimistic were the four Nordic countries.The happiest Slavic-language country is unsurprisingly the Czech Republic, which has the highest Germanic ancestry, with levels of Germanic haplogroups similar to Austria and Switzerland.
You make a good case for the theory, but I'm not buying it. Actually your hypothesis should be pretty easy to verify. Do people of germanic descent in Canada suffer less from depression than their african, middle eastern, asian or latin countrymen? I doubt it. And about the natural selection, there's nothing from keeping people from getting children before killing themselves from depression, so depressive people aren't naturally pruned from the genepool in northern countries. Actually, as hunter-gatherers people would already get their first children at puberty, and generally die before they were 30.Besides. Modern scandinavians have very little or no genetic ancestry from the SHG, who apparently were a mix of WHG and EHG. Have a look at "Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity between Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers and Contemporary Scandinavians" - Malmström et al, 2009. Modern scandinavians descend primarily from the trichterbecherkultur people (WHG/farmer mix) and the later yamnaya. So the genetic origin of the "germanic peoples" doesn't go as far back as the mesolithic. The last descendants of the SHG were probably the pitted ware culture who probably moved north and died out sometime ind the neolithic. Of cause, the yamnaya themselves were a mix of EHG, CHG and ANE. In reality, very fair skin, fair hair, as well as red hair, probably originate with the EHG, who also seems to be the people who lived the longest in the very far north. It seems most likely it is the EHG part of the yamnaya ancestry that gave the yamnaya fairer skin than any other people, at the time of their incursion into Europe. At least, that's what the studies I've read seem to indicate. My point is, if natural selection selects for a "happy-go-lucky" gene among people living at high altitudes, the EHG would have been the ones carrying that gene. And in that case, that gene would today be spread out across all of European population because of the yamnaya. The reason most often given for scandinavian countries scoring high in happiness, is that we are fairly small, rich, safe and egalitarian societies. We enjoy a very, very high degree of social security, while still being just as free as everybody else in the western world. The only downside being very high taxes, but with a good economy, we still have good salaries compared to the cost of living.We have extremely little corruption in our state and government, and we always had very high levels of trust in other people. Not very long ago, it wasn't uncommon for mothers to leave their children sleeping in their carriages outside the cafe's. That's changing now because of EU's open borders and the migrant crisis. Just last year some romanian gypsies stole an unattended babycarriage, that incidentally happened to contain a baby. The scandinavians are slowly loosing their innocence, as the reality of the real world moves in with the open borders and all.Anyway, I can use myself as an example of what it is about our societies that makes us scandinavians happy. I used to work as an electrician, but I always hated it. It was very physically taxing for me. I was always tired, and I always thought most people in the building business were morons. I just didn't like the people I would work with. So in the age of 37, I choose to take a new education as a lab technician. This was possible because in Denmark, education is for free everybody - no matter what - always. And you even get a fair amount of money from the state while you study, and you can borrow more at a low rate if it's not enough for you. Now, me changing career didn't benefit the society in anyway, actually, we really need electricians Denmark at the moment, so it's actually pretty bad I didn't want to work as one. But for me personally, it made my life much better, and it made me much more happy, because I now spend my days doing something I like.
 
You make a good case for the theory, but I'm not buying it. Actually your hypothesis should be pretty easy to verify. Do people of germanic descent in Canada suffer less from depression than their african, middle eastern, asian or latin countrymen? I doubt it.

Thanks for your feedback. Have you checked my other posts about happiness levels in the USA? Minnesota, which has the highest percentage of Scandinavian ancestry, is also ranked as the happiest. I don't have data for Canada, but the correlation between increased happiness and Scandinavian ancestry holds for most US states, so there is no reason it should be different in Canada. I don't know of any study comparing ethnic groups in the US or Canada for depression.


Modern scandinavians have very little or no genetic ancestry from the SHG, who apparently were a mix of WHG and EHG. Have a look at "Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity between Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers and Contemporary Scandinavians" - Malmström et al, 2009. Modern scandinavians descend primarily from the trichterbecherkultur people (WHG/farmer mix) and the later yamnaya. So the genetic origin of the "germanic peoples" doesn't go as far back as the mesolithic. The last descendants of the SHG were probably the pitted ware culture who probably moved north and died out sometime ind the neolithic. Of cause, the yamnaya themselves were a mix of EHG, CHG and ANE. In reality, very fair skin, fair hair, as well as red hair, probably originate with the EHG, who also seems to be the people who lived the longest in the very far north. It seems most likely it is the EHG part of the yamnaya ancestry that gave the yamnaya fairer skin than any other people, at the time of their incursion into Europe. At least, that's what the studies I've read seem to indicate. My point is, if natural selection selects for a "happy-go-lucky" gene among people living at high altitudes, the EHG would have been the ones carrying that gene. And in that case, that gene would today be spread out across all of European population because of the yamnaya.

Modern Scandinavians nevertheless inherited the most SHG ancestry from any population. The way natural selection works is that beneficial genes are quickly passed on when two populations merge. Look at the gene for lactase persistence. Almost nobody had it in Scandinavia 5000 years ago, then Steppe people came in the Copper and Bronze Age, with maybe 10% of the people carrying that mutation. It got positively selected and nowadays 95% of Scandinavians have it. Same for red hair in Britain, Ireland and Norway. The mutation was found in a small percentage of R1b people who came during the Bell Beaker period 4200 years ago, and its frequency increased over time in parts of Europe that had the least sunlight all year round (i.e. the cloudiest). In Britain there is an west-east gradient in red that closely follows the number of hours of sunlight per year. Ditto in Scandinavia. Rainy Norway has much more red hair than sunny Sweden.

The reason most often given for scandinavian countries scoring high in happiness, is that we are fairly small, rich, safe and egalitarian societies. We enjoy a very, very high degree of social security, while still being just as free as everybody else in the western world. The only downside being very high taxes, but with a good economy, we still have good salaries compared to the cost of living.We have extremely little corruption in our state and government, and we always had very high levels of trust in other people.

The author of the book analysed that, but the argument doesn't hold. The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are generally rich, safe and egalitarian societies with good social security, but never score as high for happiness. Japan is safer than Scandinavia, and is indeed surely the safest country in the world. It is very peaceful and egalitarian, has a good economy with hardly any employment, free education and a very good and cheap healthcare. The Japanese have the world's highest life expectancy, a good climate, excellent food, etc. Yet they rank very low for happiness.

The Japanese have trust levels that are so high that it makes them easy targets for pickpockets and scammers when they travel abroad. If you leave a wallet full of banknotes (say worth 5000€) on a restaurant table or in the street, you can be 99% sure that someone will bring it back to you or to the nearest police station (who will contact you) and you will get it back without a penny (or a yen) missing. It's not just theft that is almost unheard of. Japan has a homicide rate 3x lower than Denmark, and only beaten by rich city-states like Singapore or Monaco. So neither trust not safety impact happiness levels.

Scandinavian countries have the lowest corruption in the world, but I doubt that that factor alone justifies a much higher happiness. Anyway, as I explained above, even Americans of Scandinavian descent are happier, so it's clearly not related to the country or system, but to ancestry.

Then Scandinavia is not as rosy as you think. This article explains that, for example the Danes have:

- The Danes also have the highest level of private debt in the world.
- Denmark's schools lag behind even the UK's.
- According to the World Cancer Research Fund, the Danes have the highest cancer rates on the planet.
- According to a report in Politiken, the proportion of people below the poverty line has doubled over the last decade. In fact, I checked the statistics and income inequality and Denmark doesn't ranks so well anymore. According to the World Bank, Denmark is the 18th most egalitarian country, behind countries like Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, other Nordic countries and Belgium. Comparing the gap between the 10% richest and 10% poorest, Japan ranks first, while Denmark is 28th, behind the aforementioned but also Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.

Anyway, I can use myself as an example of what it is about our societies that makes us scandinavians happy. I used to work as an electrician, but I always hated it. It was very physically taxing for me. I was always tired, and I always thought most people in the building business were morons. I just didn't like the people I would work with. So in the age of 37, I choose to take a new education as a lab technician. This was possible because in Denmark, education is for free everybody - no matter what - always. And you even get a fair amount of money from the state while you study, and you can borrow more at a low rate if it's not enough for you. Now, me changing career didn't benefit the society in anyway, actually, we really need electricians Denmark at the moment, so it's actually pretty bad I didn't want to work as one. But for me personally, it made my life much better, and it made me much more happy, because I now spend my days doing something I like.

Education is free (or very, very cheap) in most of Europe. Only the UK and Ireland have slightly more expensive universities, but they also happen to be the best and still cost peanuts compared to the USA.

As for social security, the Scandinavian system isn't nearly as generous as the Belgian or French one. You can't live on the dole, getting 1000 to 2000€ per month indefinitely for years (say 10 years) in Scandinavia, but it's possible and quite common in Belgium and France (hence the higher number of immigrants).

France is almost as egalitarian as Scandinavia and is better in many respects relating to quality of life (climate, historical heritage, cuisine, life expectancy, number of working hours per week, holidays, social security...). Yet French people, just like the Japanese, are less happy than they should, and indeed among the most pessimistic people in the world. That's I think the best proof that the best system can't make people happy if they are genetically not predisposed for happiness.
 
Thanks for your feedback. Have you checked my other posts about happiness levels in the USA? Minnesota, which has the highest percentage of Scandinavian ancestry, is also ranked as the happiest. I don't have data for Canada, but the correlation between increased happiness and Scandinavian ancestry holds for most US states, so there is no reason it should be different in Canada. I don't know of any study comparing ethnic groups in the US or Canada for depression.

Thank you too, it's an interesting topic :)

I’m sure you know that correlation does not mean causation. Comparing “happiness” and rates of depression between various ethnic groups in Canada or Alaska would be interesting, because it’s on the same longitude as Scandinavia. So it will have the same kind of dark winters and long summer days. Alternately, we would just have to look how happiness varies among different ethnic groups in Scandinavia. of cause only between people who grew up here. I once heard winter in Denmark described as “Hell” by newly arrived southeast Asians.

It could be an interesting study.

Modern Scandinavians nevertheless inherited the most SHG ancestry from any population.


No, I don't believe that is correct. People in the Baltics have way more SHG ancestry than scandinavians. They stayed hunter-gatherers until the Corded Ware people arrived. Just as scandinavians are a mix of TRB and yamnaya, baltic people are a mix of SHG and yamnaya. If I recall the paper correctly, that I mentioned in my former post, the authors found no genetic connection what so ever between SHG and modern Scandinavians. The TRB farmers almost completely replaced the hunter-gatherers, just as in many other parts of Europe. Okay, maybe just a little admixture took place, but nothing like in the baltic countries apparently.

The SHG themselves were a mix of EHG and WHG who met up in Scandinavia after the ice retreated.

Besides the paper I mention in my former post, it’s also from these papers I base my understanding: "Genomic Diversity and Admixture Differs for Stone-Age Scandinavian Foragers and Farmers", "The Genetic History of Northern Europe", “Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the Steppe” but particularly “The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region” from Mitnik et al 2018. it's all papers I read this winter, so my memory might be lacking though.

I understand you point about the red hair cline and all that, I’m just not sure it translates to happiness. Red hair is different. It gives you light skin, so people with that mutation will easier get skin cancer and die, if they live in the south. There’s nothing preventing someone with the happy-go-lucky gene to travel south and stay there. Always being more positive and optimistic will always be an advantage, no matter where you live.

About lactase persistence. To my knowledge, why that mutation spread so fast and became fixated in the European population in the bronze age is unknown. It's a mystery that hasn’t been solved yet. Didn’t the farmers have the same propensity to develop lactase persistence? I think so, if I recall correctly. It would just fit so perfectly if it was the yamnaya who brought that gene here, that people can't stand it's not that simple.

The author of the book analysed that, but the argument doesn't hold. The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are generally rich, safe and egalitarian societies with good social security, but never score as high for happiness.

Yes, but except for Luxembourg, all these countries have much larger populations than the scandinavian ones, and are all much less homogenous, except Japan, but they have other issues. And of cause, any of these factors alone doesn’t make anyone happy - it’s much more complex.

Japan is safer than Scandinavia, and is indeed surely the safest country in the world. It is very peaceful and egalitarian, has a good economy with hardly any employment, free education and a very good and cheap healthcare. The Japanese have the world's highest life expectancy, a good climate, excellent food, etc. Yet they rank very low for happiness.
The Japanese have trust levels that are so high that it makes them easy targets for pickpockets and scammers when they travel abroad. If you leave a wallet full of banknotes (say worth 5000€) on a restaurant table or in the street, you can be 99% sure that someone will bring it back to you or to the nearest police station (who will contact you) and you will get it back without a penny (or a yen) missing. It's not just theft that is almost unheard of. Japan has a homicide rate 3x lower than Denmark, and only beaten by rich city-states like Singapore or Monaco. So neither trust not safety impact happiness levels.

Yes, this is true. But it’s not just one factors that determines the happiness of people. The Japanese might have much higher trust levels than the danes, but in their case, I believe it is their culture that makes them unhappy - simply put. Harakiri and all. I’ve been there myself twice.

Trust and feelings of safety does impact happiness levels a lot, but it’s obviously not the only factor at play.

Scandinavian countries have the lowest corruption in the world, but I doubt that that factor alone justifies a much higher happiness. Anyway, as I explained above, even Americans of Scandinavian descent are happier, so it's clearly not related to the country or system, but to ancestry.


I think you’re wrong about that. I think exactly this, is one of the major factors at play. It works together with the trust and safety levels we already discussed.

Then Scandinavia is not as rosy as you think. This article explains that, for example the Danes have:

- The Danes also have the highest level of private debt in the world.
- Denmark's schools lag behind even the UK's.
- According to the World Cancer Research Fund, the Danes have the highest cancer rates on the planet.
- According to a report in Politiken, the proportion of people below the poverty line has doubled over the last decade. In fact, I checked the statistics and income inequality and Denmark doesn't ranks so well anymore. According to the World Bank, Denmark is the 18th most egalitarian country, behind countries like Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, other Nordic countries and Belgium. Comparing the gap between the 10% richest and 10% poorest, Japan ranks first, while Denmark is 28th, behind the aforementioned but also Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.

Yes, this is all true. It used to be a lot better here, and in someways we are blind to the fact that the society we used to have is slowly deteriorating. I just think the danes haven’t realized yet, and that said, we aren’t number one the happiness list. I believe that in 10 or 20 years we will be just as unhappy as the latins - the EU is seeing to that.

It might very well be an illusory happiness you find here. Most danes think our health system is fabulous - it’s not. It’s much worse than what you find in many other western countries, we just aven’t realized yet. Same with our social security system - it used to be a lot better, but we are still proud of it, when we tell foreigners about it.

About cancer, Danish culture is very much against puritanism. We want to enjoy our smokes and our glass of redwine, and nobody can tell us differently. We are completely opposite the swedes in that sense. More cancer in this context actually means for a more happy culture. The people getting cancer aren’t happy of cause, that’s obvious.

Actually I do believe that Danish culture is a bit more happy-go-lucky than all of our neighbours. More frivolous and carefree. The swedes are very P.C and stuck up. The finns are very somber and strange. And the germans are a difficult people, with a lot of issues about everything. I went to Burning man, and everyone were just so amazing and positive - except the german of cause. He had to be snappy and have issues with people when he was drunk. Norwegians and danes are most alike of northern people, and the dutch too. They come off as very similar to the danes to me.

Back on topic, it’s just not one or two factors playing into how “happy” a people is.

Education is free (or very, very cheap) in most of Europe. Only the UK and Ireland have slightly more expensive universities, but they also happen to be the best and still cost peanuts compared to the USA.

Yes, but no other country in the word has the S.U system. If you go to Denmark, you will find we are over-educated. It’s not uncommon for people to have several unrelated “educations”. But of cause our system used to be a lot more generous, and like everything else about our society it’s deteriorating. Denmark is slowly becoming a minor province in the EU - and as you know, we’re not the happiest country in the world any more. Google your way to the english version of danish webpage on S.U. and you will see. Unfortunately I can't post links.

As for social security, the Scandinavian system isn't nearly as generous as the Belgian or French one. You can't live on the dole, getting 1000 to 2000€ per month indefinitely for years (say 10 years) in Scandinavia, but it's possible and quite common in Belgium and France (hence the higher number of immigrants).

Yes, of cause you can. But it’s getting limited more and more, in the sense that the state just won’t leave you alone. They will try to help you with whatever issues it is that keeps you from getting a job. Being left alone on the dole to rot, will rarely make anybody happy anyway. That's not social security.

France is almost as egalitarian as Scandinavia and is better in many respects relating to quality of life (climate, historical heritage, cuisine, life expectancy, number of working hours per week, holidays, social security...). Yet French people, just like the Japanese, are less happy than they should, and indeed among the most pessimistic people in the world. That's I think the best proof that the best system can't make people happy if they are genetically not predisposed for happiness.

But quality of life isn’t everything. It’s like saying people should automatically be happy if they are rich. If you don’t feel you or your country has any good future, then you can eat all the baguette's that you want, and still be unhappy (we have French cuisine too in Denmark, you know ;) )

I'm not sure it’s going that great in France to be honest. Not that I know a lot about it, but it’s the impression I got from the last election. Front National and all, a lot of people voted for Macron even though they don't like him, and eventhough he's just going to be more of what they've already had before.

I know that retirement age for instance, is much lower in France than in Denmark, were it is being raised all the time. But is that a good thing? Denmark is being run like a well-oiled company, while many southern European countries seems to be run in a completely dysfunctional manner. We are bolstering ourselves economically for the future. Countries like France should be doing the same, but every time the politicians try to do it, like changing the retirement age, people go on strike, not realising that it would probably actually make them happier, to know they would be passing on a brighter future for their kids, than going on an early retirement.

Anyway, I’m actually not totally dismissive of the happy-go-lucky gene hypothesis, but I want more than just correlation. I can’t say exactly what it is, that makes us Scandinavians appear more happy than southern Europeans. But I think it is easier to keep a small, homogenous and relatively isolated population happy. Low corruption, high levels of trust and feelings of safety, as well as all the other things we talked about, like democracy, egalitarity, freedom, social security etc. etc. that is the recipe. But it all needs to be topped off with the right kind of culture/attitude. Otherwise it's not enough. It's many things coming into play at the same time. And all that said, I'm sure scandinavia will plummet down in the happiness index in future - thanks to the EU.
 
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