Where are people happiest with their lives?

The Danes are the happiest with their lives, according to the OECD’s How’s Life 2015 report. The report assesses well-being in order to promote better policies.

Eleven aspects of well-being are assessed, including people’s own evaluations of their lives as a whole. OECD populations were asked to rate their lives on a scale of 0-10, from “worst possible” to “best possible”. The following chart shows the 2014 mean response for the top 10 OECD nations.

Just behind Denmark, in second place, is Iceland with a score of 7.5. The top three is completed by Switzerland, just 0.01 further back.

Two other Scandinavian countries feature in the top 10, with Norway taking fourth place, and Finland in sixth. The rest of the top 10 is completed by Israel (5th), the Netherlands (7th), New Zealand (8th), Canada (ninth) and Australia (10th).

The OECD data is based on the Gallup World Poll, which uses the Cantril ladder measure, whereby participants are asked to imagine a ladder with rungs, and place themselves on the appropriate rung. The poll sampled around 1,000 people per country, and is designed to be representative of the population aged 15 and over.

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Author: Joe Myers is a Digital Content Producer at Formative Content.

Image: Two boys play in a pile of leaves in a park, October 26, 2004. REUTERS/Peter Andrews