{"id":306206,"date":"2019-03-21T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=306206"},"modified":"2019-03-20T15:59:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T13:59:23","slug":"these-are-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world-in-2019-and-where-south-africa-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/306206\/these-are-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world-in-2019-and-where-south-africa-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the happiest countries in the world in 2019 – and where South Africa ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"

US analytics and advisory company Gallup, and the UN, have released the 2019 World Happiness Report – a survey of the state of global happiness ranking 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s World Happiness Report focuses on happiness and the community: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years – on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes.<\/p>\n

The report is an acknowledgement that GDP, household income and unemployment\u00a0 data do not tell us anything about happiness.<\/p>\n

“This means that leaders can no longer assume that the lives of those in their countries improve with a rise in GDP, as was shown in the Arab Uprising countries where GDP was increasing but the ratings of their lives trended downward ahead of the unrest,” the report said.<\/p>\n

“Leaders need to follow much more traditional metrics to effectively track and lead the progress of their nation.”<\/p>\n

Happiest countries<\/strong><\/p>\n

The report found that the happiest countries tend to have high values for most of the key variables that have been found to support well-being:<\/p>\n