联合国评选出世界最幸福的国家,芬兰位于第一
Despite cold weather and long, dark winters, Finland is the happiest country in the world, according to a United Nations (UN) report. The Nordic nation topped a list of 156 countries ranked in the World Happiness Report on factors such as life expectancy, social support and corruption. Finland emerged as the happiest place even though its relatively little sun and low temperatures are often blamed for high rates of depression. It vaulted to the top from fifth place in last year’s report, nudging Norway down into second. Burundi was named the least happy country. The east African nation is one of the poorest in the world, and has been plagued by ethnic violence and political turmoil for decades. The UK remained in 19th place, while the US slipped to 18th. For the first time, the annual report published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network also evaluated 117 countries by the happiness and well-being of their immigrants. In 2015, more than a million migrants entered Europe, and a few thousand made it to Finland, a relatively homogenous country with about 300,000 foreigners and residents with foreign roots out of a population of 5.5 million. Finland’s largest immigrant groups come from other European nations, but there also are communities from Afghanistan, China, Iraq and Somalia. John Helliwell, a co-editor of the World Happiness Report, noted that all the countries in the top 10 scored highest both in overall happiness and on the happiness of immigrants. He said a society’s happiness seemed to be contagious . “The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistency between the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” Mr Helliwell said. “Those who move to happier countries gain, while those who move to less happy countries lose.” Rounding out the top 10 were Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. Meik Wiking, chief executive of the Copenhagen-based Happiness Research Institute, said the five Nordic countries that reliably rank high in the index “are doing something right in terms of creating good conditions for good lives”. He said the happiness revealed in the survey derives from healthy amounts of both personal freedoms and social security, which outweigh residents having to pay “some of the highest taxes in the world”. |