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The World's Happiest Countries

HoosierDeac said:
I think it's a cultural thing moreso than demographics (which is a touchy topic to say the least). I remember my first trip to Europe several years ago. I was touring Rome and took note of the fact that at 10:00 on Monday morning a number of storefronts/services (pharmacies and such) were still closed. The explanation I received was that Sunday evenings were reserved as family time with late dinners, drinking wine, strolling around etc. that the businesses just weren't quite open yet (not to mention the mid-day 'siestas' that you often see). As an American, where we are conditioned to have almost anything we want immediately and 24-7, this almost seemed unthinkable to me.
Another point is that many European companies are mandated to provided several weeks vacation to their employees, where in the US many companies provide a paltry 2 weeks (esp if you are just starting out with a company) which I find absurd in a civilized modern society.

I guess it's just a matter of priorities- US seems to be more focused on live to work, make money, buy material things, keep up with the Joneses, etc- all very illusory in one's pursuit of happiness.
Europe is more focused on work to live, relationships, experiences, time with family, living the good life- they seem to 'get it' better than we do in some aspects.

I would argue that yes, the social compact may be better exercised there- e.g. the social safety net allays most people concerns re survival; does it take a bit of an edge off "productivity" and "success"? Perhaps, but where has that left us in the US?
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nicely done
 
HoosierDeac said:
I think it's a cultural thing moreso than demographics (which is a touchy topic to say the least). I remember my first trip to Europe several years ago. I was touring Rome and took note of the fact that at 10:00 on Monday morning a number of storefronts/services (pharmacies and such) were still closed. The explanation I received was that Sunday evenings were reserved as family time with late dinners, drinking wine, strolling around etc. that the businesses just weren't quite open yet (not to mention the mid-day 'siestas' that you often see). As an American, where we are conditioned to have almost anything we want immediately and 24-7, this almost seemed unthinkable to me.
Another point is that many European companies are mandated to provided several weeks vacation to their employees, where in the US many companies provide a paltry 2 weeks (esp if you are just starting out with a company) which I find absurd in a civilized modern society.

I guess it's just a matter of priorities- US seems to be more focused on live to work, make money, buy material things, keep up with the Joneses, etc- all very illusory in one's pursuit of happiness.
Europe is more focused on work to live, relationships, experiences, time with family, living the good life- they seem to 'get it' better than we do in some aspects.

I would argue that yes, the social compact may be better exercised there- e.g. the social safety net allays most people concerns re survival; does it take a bit of an edge off "productivity" and "success"? Perhaps, but where has that left us in the US?
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very, very good
 
Don't the Norwegians and Fins also have a high suicide rate? Those countries are always high on those lists and it's dark half the year. No thanks.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Don't the Norwegians and Fins also have a high suicide rate? Those countries are always high on those lists and it's dark half the year. No thanks.
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Good point. Dead people can't respond to surveys.
 
WFU03 said:
While I agree with most of the points you make, I'll pick on the following:
5. You might count Norway as an exception here as well after the attacks of July 2011. The non-ethnically Norwegian population here is growing rapidly and Oslo will be majority non-Norwegian in the next thirty years.

These two questions strike me as naive:
Why are people not standing in line to move to the top four?
Why are most immigrants going to other countries?

It takes a lot for people to leave their country. Additionally, people may want to leave for many reasons, but want to stay for many others. Leaving your homeland is never easy, no matter how bad it may look to an outsider. I'm friends with an Afghani guy here that desperately misses his homeland, but left under threats of death. It's not just a simple calculation of which country has higher living standards or happiness or oil reserves (etc.). A huge part of everyday life is culture and whether or not one feels like the cultural tradeoffs from leaving one's own culture are worth the benefits of moving to a new country. This is the single biggest difference between the US labor market and the EU labor market: people are much more willing to move from Michigan to DC than they are from Spain to Germany.

To tie more directly into your questions, though, each country has its own immigration policies that make it more or less hard to move there. Why fight to get into a top 4 country if you can get into #5 relatively easily (just as a hypothetical). I know that Norway has fairly strict immigration laws and, unless you're a refugee or have family in Norway, you're going to have a very hard time getting a residence permit. As a result, someone desperate to move to a rich European country would be unlikely to pick Norway in spite of its happiness and per capita income levels.

(On a more directly related matter, I'm convinced that the reason why Nordic countries rank so highly on these happiness indices is because, by all objective measures relating to development, the countries do well and, subjectively, people here have very low expectations for the future. If things are staying the same, people are happy that it isn't getting worse. In contrast, Americans expect that life will get better and are unhappy when it stagnates. Obviously a generalization, but it's also my experience in talking to people over the course of four years here.)

Edit to add: I also should have taken exception with point #3 unless by "a long time" you meant 20-30 years.
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Good post. Thanks for the specific points about Norway.

My point about immigration come from the eitheenth-century Scotish philosopher David Hume. He thought that people wanting to settle in a country was the best sign that it was governed well.

Good point about the differences in expectations in America and many other places. This raises the question: do high expectations lead to happiness, and if not, which is more important: high expectations or happiness.
 
At the heart of these top four countries are being among the most openly socialistic, freer sexuality and having little to no ties between religion and politics in their countries.
 
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RJKarl said:
You are the one who use Aryans and "white northern Europeans" multiple time in the first post.

100 years of independence is five times what Eastern Europe and at least double what what Africa, the middle East and even what most of South Asia has.

also you can't compare Norway's split from Sweden with having been colonized. Each of those countries have been "modern" for hundreds of years.

Those are the historical facts that you dismiss.
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You're babbling again. Pretty soon everyone is gonna have to go take a piss.
 
So it's "babbling" when historical facts don't suit you.
 
RJKarl said:
At the heart of these top four countries are being among the most openly socialistic, freer sexuality and having little to no ties between religion and politics in their countries.
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I let your Norway wasn't colonized really by Sweden remark go earlier (hint: look up its history under both Denmark and Sweden), but this one is a bit much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Denmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Sweden
 
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