Though Hong Kong may not want to hear it, there exist different ways to measure a country’s wellbeing other than GDP per capita – how happy its residents are with their lives, for example.
Hong Kong ranks 72nd in happiness out of 158 countries and territories, according to the new 2015 World Happiness Report.
The three happiest countries in the world are Switzerland, Iceland, and Denmark while the three least happy are Syria, Burundi, and Togo.
The report, published for the third time, looked at our levels of happiness from 2012 to 2014.
The most updated data gives us a score of 5.47 out of 10, slightly ahead of mainland China, which scored 5.14 and ranked 84th.
Sadly, we’ve dropped 0.037 points from our score for the period between 2005 and 2007, while our mainland compatriots have gotten 0.420 points happier.
The system uses an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) definition of subjective wellbeing: it encompasses “the cognitive evaluations of one’s life, positive emotions (joy, pride), and negative ones (pain, anger, worry)”.
The report measured how much of our happiness could be attributed to six different factors.
Our emotional wellbeing can be mainly explained by our GDP per capita, followed by our long life expectancies and strong social networks, which contribute in roughly equal amounts, apparently.
Then, in decreasing order of importance, is the freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.
So we’ve got money and we’ve got friends and family, but we’re not free or generous enough, and we’re not exactly thrilled with the government. And this was pre-Umbrella Movement!
Now, how do we turn that frown upside down?
Read the full report here.
Photo: Patrick Cheung via Flickr
