World Happiness Report 2017 
 
 The first World Happiness Report was published in April, 2012, in support of the UN High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. Since then the world has come a long way. Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy. In June 2016 the OECD committed itself “to redefine the growth narrative to put people’s well-being at the center of governments’ efforts”. In February 2017, the United Arab Emirates held a full-day World Happiness meeting, as part of the World Government Summit. Now on World Happiness Day, March 20th, we launch the World Happiness Report 2017, once again back at the United Nations, again published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and now supported by a generous three-year grant from the Ernesto Illy Foundation. 
 
 Norway tops the global happiness rankings for 2017 
 
 Norway has jumped from 4th place in 2016 to 1st place this year, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland in a tightly packed bunch. All of the top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. Their averages are so close that small changes can re-order the rankings from year to year. Norway moves to the top of the ranking despite weaker oil prices. It is sometimes said that Norway achieves and maintains its high happiness not because of its oil wealth, but in spite of it. By choosing to produce its oil slowly, and investing the proceeds for the future rather than spending them in the present, Norway has insulated itself from the boom and bust cycle of many other resource-rich economies. To do this successfully requires high levels of mutual trust, shared purpose, generosity and good governance, all factors that help to keep Norway and other top countries where they are in the happiness rankings. 
 
 All of the other countries in the top ten also have high values in all six of the key variables used to explain happiness differences among countries and through time – income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble, generosity, freedom and trust, with the latter measured by the absence of corruption in business and government. Here too there has been some shuffling of ranks among closely grouped countries, with this year’s rankings placing Finland in 5thplace, followed by the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia and Sweden tied for the 9th position, having the same 2014-2016 score to three decimals. 
 
 Happiness is both social and personal 
 
 This year’s report emphasizes the importance of the social foundations of happiness (see Chapter 2). This can be seen by comparing the life experiences between the top and bottom ten countries in this year’s happiness rankings. There is a four-point happiness gap between the two groups of countries, of which three-quarters is explained by the six variables, half due to differences in having someone to count on, generosity, a sense of freedom, and freedom from corruption. The other half of the explained difference is attributed to GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy, both of which, as the report explains, also depend importantly on the social context. 
 
 However 80% of the variance of happiness across the world occurs within countries. In richer countries the within-country differences are not mainly explained by income inequality, but by differences in mental health, physical health and personal relationships: the biggest single source of misery is mental illness (see Chapter 5). Income differences matter more in poorer countries, but even their mental illness is a major source of misery. 
 
 Work is also a major factor affecting happiness (see Chapter 6). Unemployment causes a major fall in happiness, and even for those in work the quality of work can cause major variations in happiness. 
 
 People in China are no happier than 25 years ago 
 
 Our China chapter is led by Richard A. Easterlin, who pioneered the economics of happiness more than 40 years ago. It contrasts the sharply growing per capita income in China over the past 25 years with life evaluations that fell steadily from 1990 till about 2005, recovering since then to about the 1990 levels. They attribute the dropping happiness in the first part of the period to rising unemployment and fraying social safety nets, with recoveries since in both (see Chapter 3). 
 
 Much of Africa is struggling 
 
 The Africa chapter, led by Valerie Møller, tells a much more diverse story, as fits the African reality with its great number and vast range of experiences. But these are often marked by delayed and disappointed hopes for happier lives (see Chapter 4). 
 
 Happiness has fallen in America 
 
 The USA is a story of reduced happiness. In 2007 the USA ranked 3rd among the OECD countries; in 2016 it came 19th. The reasons are declining social support and increased corruption (see Chapter 7) and it is these same factors that explain why the Nordic countries do so much better. 
 
 Colophon 
 
 World Happiness Report 2017 
 
 Editors: John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs Associate Editors: Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Haifang Huang and Shun Wang 
 
 This publication may be reproduced using the following reference: Helliwell, J., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (2017). World Happiness Report 2017, New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network. 
 
 World Happiness Report management by Sharon Paculor. Copy editing by Mariam Gulaid, Saloni Jain and Louise Doucette. Design by John Stislow and Stephanie Stislow. 
 
 ISBN 978-0-9968513-5-0 ||||| ROME, March 16 — The World Happiness Report 2016 Update, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, was released today in Rome in advance of UN World Happiness Day, March 20th. The widespread interest in the World Happiness Reports, of which this is the fourth, reflects growing global interest in using happiness and subjective well-being as primary indicators of the quality of human development. Because of this growing interest, many governments, communities and organizations are using happiness data, and the results of subjective well-being research, to enable policies that support better lives. 
 
 The 2016 Update was launched at the Bank of Italy during a three-day series of conferences on happiness and subjective well-being. A companion volume, the Word Happiness Report 2016 Special Rome Edition, was also released at the same time. 
 
 “Measuring self-reported happiness and achieving well-being should be on every nation’s agenda as they begin to pursue the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “Indeed the Goals themselves embody the very idea that human well-being should be nurtured through a holistic approach that combines economic, social and environmental objectives. Rather than taking a narrow approach focused solely on economic growth, we should promote societies that are prosperous, just, and environmentally sustainable.” 
 
 This year, for the first time, the World Happiness Report gives a special role to the measurement and consequences of inequality in the distribution of well-being among countries and regions. In previous reports the editors have argued that happiness provides a better indicator of human welfare than do income, poverty, education, health and good government measured separately. In a parallel way, they now argue that the inequality of well-being provides a broader measure of inequality. They find that people are happier living in societies where there is less inequality of happiness. They also find that happiness inequality has increased significantly (comparing 2012-2015 to 2005-2011) in most countries, in almost all global regions, and for the population of the world as a whole. 
 
 The report, produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), is once again edited by Professor John F. Helliwell of the University of British Columbia and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; Professor Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance; and Professor Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and SDSN. 
 
 The Update finds the top 10 countries to be the same as in the 2015 report, although their ordering has changed once again, with Denmark regaining the top spot, followed closely by Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. The top 10 are rounded out, in order, by Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden. The US ranked 13th, two spots higher than last year. 
 
 “The rankings show both consistency and change,” said Helliwell. “The consistency at the top reflects mainly that life evaluations are based on life circumstances that usually evolve slowly, and that are all at high levels in the top countries. The year-to-year changes are also moderated by the averaging of data from three years of surveys in order to provide large sample sizes. However, when there have been long-lasting changes in the quality of life, they have led to large changes in life evaluation levels and rankings, as shown by the many countries with large gains or losses from 2005-2007 to 2013-2015.” 
 
 As previous reports have done, The World Happiness Report 2016 Update looks at trends in the data recording how highly people evaluate their lives on a scale running from 0 to 10. The rankings, which are based on surveys in 156 countries covering the three years 2013-2015, reveal an average score of 5.1 (out of 10). Seven key variables explain three-quarters of the variation in annual national average scores over time and among countries: real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption, and generosity (Table 2.1). 
 
 Chapter 2 of the Update, by Helliwell, Haifang Huang and Shun Wang, presents the latest data and analysis of happiness around the world. This is followed by Layard’s Chapter 3 on Promoting Secular Ethics and by Sachs’ Chapter 4 on Happiness and Sustainable Development. 
 
 he companion volume of papers, prepared especially for the Rome conference, and edited by Anthony Annett, Leonardo Becchetti and Sachs, contains the following chapters: 
 
 Inside the Life Satisfaction Blackbox (Leonardo Becchetti, Luisa Corrado, and Paola Sama) 
 
 Human Flourishing, the Common Good, and Catholic Social Teaching (Anthony Annett) 
 
 The Challenges of Public Happiness: an Historical-Methodological Reconstruction (Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zemagni) 
 
 The Geography of Parenthood and Well-Being: Do Children Make Us Happy, Where, and Why? (Luca Stanca) 
 
 Multidimensional Well-Being in Contemporary Europe: an Analysis of the Use of a Self-Organizing Map Applied to SHARE Data (Mario Lucchini, Luca Crivelli and Sara della Bella) 
 
 MEDIA INQUIRIES: Kyu Lee, klee@ei.columbia.edu, 646-337-3528
– The United States is at its unhappiest level since the annual World Happiness Report was first released in 2012. This year, the US came in No. 18, down four spots from last year, the Washington Post reports. The report was released Wednesday by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative of the United Nations, in advance of the UN's International Day of Happiness March 20. It ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, taking into account six factors: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. Income is the biggest variable, but an economist who co-edited the list notes that a sense of belonging and other societal factors also play major roles. The US, for example, struggles with obesity, substance abuse, and other factors despite significant economic growth. This year's 10 happiest countries: