Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2015-05-12
The first World Happiness Report was published in 2012. The most recent one was
published a few weeks ago. In both reports, Sri Lanka was ranked very low, lower than
most countries in the world. In 2012, the countrys position was 137 out of 156
countries, whereas, this year the country has been ranked 132 out of 158 countries. All
Asian countries except Cambodia and Afghanistan have done better than Sri Lanka.
The country that came first is Switzerland, followed by several Nordic countries like
Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Other countries that fell into the first ten are
Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia. As is well known, all these
countries are not only economically developed but have high levels of social
development bolstered by long-standing welfare policies.
In recent years we have been accustomed to describing Sri Lanka as a lower middle
income country with an unusually high level of social development. In fact, many
commentators have pointed out that Sri Lankas high level of social development is
exceptional for a country of such a low level of per capita GDP. On the other hand, the
country is neither extremely poor nor socially backward. Countries that are ranked
very low are usually economically poor and socially underdeveloped. Some of these
are also conflict-ridden like Afghanistan. It is against this background that the very low
ranking of Sri Lanka in the world happiness report comes as a surprise to many in this
country and elsewhere. Yet, a closer examination of economic, social and political
conditions in this country shows that it is not difficult to understand why it has ranked
so low in the global happiness report of 2015.
Posted by Thavam