Seven countries are officially happier than New Zealand, according to the United Nations (UN).
The UN's 2019 World Happiness report, an annual publication analysing the overall contentment of every country, listed New Zealand as the eighth happiest nation on the planet, losing out to Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.
The primary reason for New Zealand being in the top 10 is our GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.
Finland retained its spot as the world's happiest country, after being ranked fifth in 2017.
Scandinavia remains the happiest region in the world. Nordic countries are heralded for their quality of government, structure of government policies, and influence on happiness.
The United States has slid down the rankings since last year, dropping one place to the19th happiest in the world. In north America, life evaluations fell by about 0.3 points.
War-torn Syria unsurprisingly remains near the bottom of the list, with the only country less happy being Venezuela.
The report says the greatest impact still appears to flow from the quality of policy delivery - including the control of corruption.
Newshub.
