Japan ranked 53rd out of 156 countries in a recent global ranking of happiness, the World Happiness Report. This disappointing showing may be as strong an indicator of the realities of life in Japan as any economic measure could provide. The ranking of happiness around the world took into account objective data, such as gross domestic product per capita, together with self-reported evaluations of personal happiness. The results, though, revealed once again that quality of life remains relatively low in Japan.
Of the 156 countries surveyed, Denmark and Switzerland came in numbers one and two, with Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden rounding out the rest of the top 10. The least happy countries were those torn by war and ravaged by poverty, such as Syria, Togo, Afghanistan and most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Greece, with its economic and migrant crises, had the largest drop in happiness. But Japan also declined in happiness, coming in 107th in measures of relative decline in happiness compared to 10 years ago. About half of countries became relatively happier over that same time period.