Gallup world poll ranks NZ sixth happiest country in the world, along with Costa Rica. Why is relatively poor Costa Rica so happy?

Polling company Gallup bills its global happiness research as going beyond measuring “simple happiness for people and wealth within societies to uncover what really makes certain people and communities thrive while others struggle and suffer”.

The findings (which I haven’t seen published in NZ) are based on in-depth analysis of wellbeing, which is described by Gallup as the “interconnected elements that contribute to health, happiness, and productivity, including work, social networks, personal economics, personal health, and citizen engagement”.

NZ came sixth to compared our country ranking of 51 in terms of personal wealth.

(Based on a table compiled by Forbes.com. GDP rankings courtesy of CIA Factbook)

Poll questions include:
• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do?
• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your standard of living, all the things you can buy and do?
• Right now, do you feel your standard of living is getting better or getting worse?
• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your personal health?
• If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them or not?
• Approximately how many hours did you spend socially with friends or family yesterday?                                                                   

• Have you volunteered your time to an organisation in the past month?
• Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
• Did you feel well-rested yesterday?
• Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?
• Did you experience a lot of stress yesterday.

Obviously another better measure of how we’re faring overall than the simple gross domestic product per capita measure still favoured by many.

But wellbeing doesn’t tell the whole story either.

Gallup has developed a hierarchy – “a path for building the best society possible” – of needs that are required if we’re to have thriving communities.

The first order ones are:
• Law and order
• Food and shelter

Then comes:
• Institutions and infrastructure
• Good jobs
• Well being
• Brain gain – a “country’s ability to attract and retain talented people whose exceptional gifts and knowledge create new business and new jobs to help improve that city’s or country’s economy”.
• Quality GDP growth

GDP growth is guess is built on the foundation of the others.

Gallup says it believes “leaders can’t maximize the potential of their societies until they measure and truly understand their individual country’s areas of strength and weakness and then track progress toward improvement”.

The NZ Institute with its nzahead campaign is pushing for a “big picture” growth goal that has 16 measures including traditional gross domestic product per capita, along with ones for inequality, education, unemployment, productivity, innovation and the environment.

It’ll be the ‘big picture’ measure of how we’re doing overall as a nation that’ll motivate Kiwis to change, not harping on about falling incomes, gdp per capita etc.

But BigCake doesn’t believe that lets us off the hook in the wealth stakes.

As the Gallup happiness poll shows, you’ve got a better chance of being happy if you’re from a “rich” nation. The three unhappiest countries in the world are Coromos, Burundi and Togo.

Though as Costa Rica shows money ain’t everything. The Central American country has about one fifth the per capita gdp of Norway.

Costa Rica’s happiness is not a flash in the pan in terms of strong performances in international surveys. It’s also:
• Number 1 in the Happy Planet Index compiled by the New Economics Foundation
• 3rd in the 2010 Environmental Performance Index published by Yale and Columbia Universities.

Earlier this year the BBC had a look at why Costa Ricans were so happy. The Beeb identified:
• Emphasis on the environment – more than half its territory is now covered in trees, compared to 20% in the 1980s
• A carbon tax is used in part to pay landowners and indigenous communities not to chop down trees
• More than 90% of its energy supply comes from renewable sources

• High life expectancy of 78.5 years
• And ummmm the army was abolished in 1949.

But as the BEEB asks: does this “greenness” make Costa Ricans happier?

“Yes,” says a cattle farmer and government adviser on climate change. “Now I have a simpler, less materialistic life, more in tune with nature.”

Costa Ricans often answer the question ‘How are you?’ with the phrase “pura vida”. It literally translates as “pure life” but roughly means “cool” or “everything’s fine”.

Analysts the Beeb spoke to say that Costa Ricans’ apparent happiness could be down to a whole series of factors in addition to greenness: strong social networks of friends, families and neighbours; ubiquitous social and education programmes; and tolerance of social divisions and different opinions.

Also “a popular piece of philosophy in Costa Rica says no argument or quarrel should last more than three days”.