Sri Lanka up four notches in World happiness ranking

Mar 15, 2018 (LBO) - Sri Lanka has moved up to 116 position with a score of 4.471 from 120 in the World Happiness Report 2018. The report ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants. The island was also ranked 43rd in the sub-category of best improvers from 2008-2010 to 2015-2017. The main focus of this year’s report, in addition to its usual ranking of the levels and changes in happiness around the world, is on migration within and between countries. The overall rankings of country happiness are based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015-2017, and show both change and stability. There is a new top ranking country, Finland, but the top ten positions are held by the same countries as in the last two years, although with some swapping of places. Four different countries have held top spot in the four most recent reports- Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland. All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. The analysis of happiness changes from 2008-2010 to 2015-2015 shows Togo as the biggest gainer, moving up 17 places in the overall rankings from the last place position it held as recently as in the 2015 rankings. The biggest loser is Venezuela, down 2.2 points on the 0 to 10 scale.