Gallup Releases Latest National Wellbeing Poll Results

Gallup's deserted front desk. Apparently everyone
was out doing surveys. From The Woodlands Texas.

The Atlantic reports that Gallup, one of the world's leading statistical organizations, has released its 2010 list of countries ranked by wellbeing. Here are the top five, along with how many of its citizens are "thriving" by their own admission:

1. Denmark:  72% thriving
2. Sweden:  69% thriving
3. Canada:  69% thriving
4. Australia:  65% thriving
5. Finland:  64% thriving

Some other interesting factoids:  the U.S. ranks 12th with 59%, which is between Panama and Austria. Also, the United Kingdom ranks 17th with 54%, which is just ahead of Qatar, but just below the United Arab Emirates. It'll be interesting to see if the U.K.'s rank improves once its Gross National Happiness measures kick into gear. As far as I know, none of the countries in the top five has official measures like that (except possibly Canada in the future).

Like the gap between the rich and the poor, there is also a huge gap in wellbeing. In 19 countries, the majority of citizens consider themselves to be thriving, yet in a whopping 67 countries, that percentage falls below 25. Russia is one of these, with 24% of its population thriving. So is China with 12%, which is even lower than Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia. The Chinese government apparently has a long way to go if they're serious about focusing on happiness (which they probably aren't).

The African nation of Chad comes in at the bottom of the list with only 1% of its population thriving. Of course, there may be worse countries out there, but those aren't even well enough to report statistics.

Gallup Finds "Happiest Man in America" in Hawaii

That's Alvin on the right. From the Daily Record.

Like Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster, a "happiest person" in any given country might seem like a mythical creature whose only evidence is some sham photographs or an odd sighting by unreliable sources. Well, according to this story from the Los Angeles Times, Gallup has apparently done the unthinkable (or maybe unnecessary?) and found the happiest man in America:  69-year-old Alvin Wong of Hawaii.

Gallup accomplished this by first assembling data on what traits and situations make people the happiest. They found that happy Americans tend to be one or more of the following things:  tall, Asian American, Jewish, 65 or older, married with children, living in Hawaii, and running their own business with a household income of more than $120,000 a year. So a theoretical "happiest person in America" would be all of these things put together, right?

Well, Gallup found that this collection of traits is not just theoretical, but that one real person in America actually meets all of them, and his name is Alvin Wong. Alvin is a Chinese-American convert to Judaism who is 5ft 10in tall, has children, owns his own business, and all the rest. The Daily Record reports that Alvin says his life philosophy is "if you can't laugh at yourself, life is going to be pretty terrible for you." He also says, of the study itself, "This is a practical joke, right?"

Who can blame him, really? Congrats, Alvin, on apparently winning at life! Your new title carries with it a lot of expectation, but you seem like the kind of guy who can take the pressure!

Charity May Depend More on Happiness than Wealth

From Need Magazine

Aaaaaand we're back to our weekday schedule. Hopefully you enjoyed our weekend features. If not, we can always improve them! This blog is still a newborn, so post a comment if you have suggestions to help it past its toddler phase, and eventually its awkward teenage years. Only YOU can help this blog grow into a happy, well-adjusted adult!

Now for the news: Clayton Jones of The Christian Science Monitor reports that a country's average level of charity depends more on its happiness than on its wealth. This information comes from a Gallup survey called "The World Giving Index 2010". The survey asked the following questions in 153 countries:

Which of the following three charitable acts have you undertaken in the past month:

1. Donated money to an organization?

2. Volunteered time to an organization?

3. Helped a stranger, or someone you didn’t know who needed help?

Gallup then compared the answers to indexes of wealth and happiness. Assuming people answered honestly (usually when huge numbers of people are surveyed, honest people outweigh the fibbers), a surprising number of economically poor countries are generous. Sierra Leone, for instance, ranks as the ninth most generous country in the world, even though it is the third lowest country on the Human Development Index.

So if you follow positive psychology tips to become happier, you may become more generous, and becoming more generous may make you happier, and so on! It's win-win!