Costa Rica News – The United Nations recently released a new study on the happiness factor of countries and Costa Rica came out near the top, at number 12. Out of 158 nations evaluated, that’s pretty impressive!
It’s the top country in Latin America. It’s also ahead of the USA, which is number 15.
The happiness of a country doesn’t necessarily have to do with the money it has.
Liberty, peace, health, education, services the government offers the people, and natural resources also play a part. The results put Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark and Norway as the happiest.
The full report is 166 pages long and analyzes life expectancy, interpersonal trust and generosity, per capita GDP, perceived freedom to make one’s own decisions, and amount of or lack of corruption.
War and poverty are the issues which most negatively affect a country’s happiness.
Afghanistan and Syria thus join eight sub-Saharan African countries in the bottom ten, the least happy countries.
