On the list of the happiest places in the world, the Philippines came out on number 20.
The happiest place according to the UK-based New Economic Foundation (NEF) is Costa Rica.
NEF ranked 140 countries according to the Happy Planet Index (HPI). The HPI has four elements to show how efficiently residents of different countries are using environmental resources to lead long, happy lives. These include:
- life expectancy or the average number of years a person is expected to live in each country
- well-being or how satisfied the residents of each country say they feel about life overall, on a scale from zero to 10, based on data collected as part of the Gallup World Poll
- ecological footprint which refers to the average impact that each resident of a country places on the environment, based on data prepared by the Global Footprint Network
- inequality of outcomes meaning inequalities between people within a country, in terms of how long they live and how happy they feel, based on the distribution in each country’s life expectancy and well-being data
The happiest place, Costa Rica, has 79.1 years for life expectancy, 7.3 rating for well-being with 10 being the highest, 2.8 global hectares for ecological footprint and 15 percent for inequality of outcomes.
Following Costa Rica is Mexico, then Colombia and Vanuatu. Next of the list are Vietnam, followed by Panama, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Thailand, Ecuador, Jamaica, Norway, Albania, Uruguay, Spain, Indonesia, El Salvador, Netherlands, and Argentina, respectively.
According to NEF, the HPI measures what matters to everyone, which is sustainable well-being for all.
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