How Happy Are We?

2.46: Since 1946, Dutch researchers at the University of Erasmus have compiled the World Database of Happiness with one simple question: "Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?" Scores ranging from 4 for "very happy" to 1 for "not at all happy" are assigned to each participant. In a poll of 90 nations between 1990 and 2000, India came ninth with a score of 2.46, ahead of Israel, Hungary and Russia. Iceland stood first with a score of 3.4. The United States, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium are in a dead heat with 3.3. But, intriguingly, Nigerians are happier than Germans, those in Ghana are happier than Italians. Near the bottom were Estonia, Armenia, and Belarus, where the average citizen rates life just above "not very happy".

21: A World Values Study of 65 countries between 1999 and 2001 placed India at No. 21 in the world happiness index. For Indians, according to New Scientist magazine, family, society values and friends were the prime factors for being happy, while for the Americans (16th), personal success, pride and self-esteem ranked topmost. The Japanese, somewhat like the Indians, said that living up to family and society expectations constituted happiness. That poll ranked Nigerians, with a per capita gross national product of over $300, as the happiest people on earth, followed by Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. By contrast, Romanians, Russians and Armenians are the unhappiest people of all the countries surveyed. Pakistan was ranked 23rd.

37% : According to a 22-nation survey undertaken by market research agency Roper Starch Worldwide and its associate in India, org-marg, 37 per cent of Indians declared themselves very happy, as against the global average of 24 per cent. Americans were by far the happiest people, with as many as 46 per cent of them saying they are "very happy" with the overall quality of their life. The Chinese (9%) and the Russians (3%) were rated as the unhappiest populations. A total of 22,500 respondents were polled. In India, the survey was carried out among 2,336 adults in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Lucknow.