Albania is one of the happiest countries

TIRANA, Sep 10 – A global ranking of well-being that uses measures such as life expectancy and corruption to assess the progress of nations has included Albania among the countries where life satisfaction grew between the 2005-07 and the 2010-12 studies, together with Angola and Ecuador.
Denmark tops the list, followed by Norway. Canada ranks sixth in the United Nations’ second world happiness report, down a notch from the last ranking because Switzerland leapfrogged into the top five.
It finds well-being is growing in much of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. As a whole, people have become a bit happier and more generous in the past five years.
“Life is getting better in unsung ways in many places – enough so that the world is slowly becoming a happier place,” said John Helliwell, professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, who co-edited the 150-page paper with Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Richard Layard of the London School of Economics.
The study looked at both peoples’ current mood and their overall life satisfaction. It found six factors help shape changes in well-being: per capita GDP, life expectancy, having someone to count on, freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.
The report urges policy makers to make happiness a key target of development. Its research finds happy people “live longer, are more productive, earn more, and are also better citizens.”
Of 130 countries for which there is data, happiness improved in 60 countries and worsened in 41 in a Gallop world poll. By region, people are feeling better in Latin America and worse in many industrialized nations.
The report is published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, with analysis of the Gallop world poll conducted by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.