Editor's note

The sixth World Happiness Report-2018 has just been published. Its central purpose remains the same as in the first Report in April 2012, i.e. to survey, measure and understanding peoples’ well-being. In addition to presenting updated rankings and analysis of life evaluations throughout the world, each World Happiness Report has had a variety of topics. The World Happiness Report-2018 is specifically devoted to global/regional migration.

Four Nordic countries are among the top five “happier states”, as they have been in 2017 too. Other five are: the Netherlands, Canada and New Zealand (correspondingly, the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th, just as they were last year), while Australia and Sweden have swapped positions since last year, with Sweden now in 9^th and Australia in the 10^th position.

It is quite notable that Finland has vaulted from the 5^th place in 2017 to the top of the rankings this year. The leading factors in the region associated with well-being –according to the Report - are general health, mental health, income and employment.

Dynamics of “happiness”

The Nordic states have had sophisticated social net that means that young people face less pressure regarding education, health or jobs than do many in other countries. Although these states are having some of the world’s highest taxes, but schools and hospitals are free, parental leave is generous, and unemployment benefits and care for the elderly help those no longer working. That social security and help add much to perceptions of happiness.

Reference: article in the New York Times, 26.08.2018. 

The “happiness’ dynamics” in the world during the last two years is rather “balanced”: 58 states increased that feeling and 59 decreased! Remarkable that such states as the US and the UK are on the 18^th and 19^th place, correspondingly.

Among the Baltic States, Lithuania is in the 50^th lace, Latvia on the 53^rd and Estonia on the 63^rd place; the Baltic’ neighbour Poland is on the 42^nd place. The Report mentioned that “happiness” in Latvia is quickly changing in the positive direction.

China’s people are on the 86^th place in “happiness”; Bulgaria on the 100^th, Georgia on 128^th, Armenia on the 129^th and Ukraine on 138^th. 

Source

Rural-urban migration

Modern “movements” from rural to urban places have been dramatic in the world; sometimes it is even called “the greatest mass migration in human history”. For example, during 1990-2015 the Chinese urban population has grown by 463 million: about half are migrants from villages to towns and cities. By contrast, the Report underlines, over the same period the increase in the number of international migrants in the entire world has been 90 million, less than half as many as rural to urban migrants in China alone.

Internal migration is however much larger than international migration: though the fact has received less attention from the wellbeing studies – even though both types of migration raise similar issues for the migrants, for those left behind, and for the populations receiving the migrants.

The shift to the towns is most easily seen by the growth of urban population in developing countries: between 1990 and 2015 the fraction of people in these countries who live in towns rose from 30% to nearly 50%, and the numbers living in towns increased by over 1,5 billion people. And at least half of it came from net migration into the towns. In the more developed parts of the world there was also some rural-urban migration, but most of that had already happened before 1990.

Rural-urban migration within countries has been far larger than international migration, and remains so, especially in the developing world. There has been, since the Neolithic agricultural revolution, a net movement of people from the countryside to the towns. In bad times this trend gets partially reversed. But in modern times it has hugely accelerated. The timing has differed in the various parts of the world, with the biggest movements linked to boosts in agricultural productivity combined with opportunities for employment elsewhere, most frequently in an urban setting. It has been a major engine of economic growth, transferring people from lower productivity agriculture to higher productivity activities in towns.

Internal migration is an urgent issue. In 1990 there were in the world 153 million people living outside the country where they were born; by 2015 this number had risen to 244 million, of whom about 10% were refugees.

Over the last quarter century international migrants increased by 90 million; in addition, there are another 700 million people who would like to move between countries but haven’t yet done so.

Sources

Conclusion

There are large gaps in happiness between countries, and these will continue to create major pressures to migration. In general, those who move to happier countries than their own will gain in happiness, while those who move to unhappier countries will tend to lose. Those left behind will not on average lose: immigration will continue to pose both opportunities and costs for those who move, for those who remain behind, and for natives of the immigrant-receiving countries.

Where immigrants are welcome and where they integrate well, immigration works best. A more tolerant attitude in the host country will prove best for migrants and for the original residents. The Report underlines that there are clearly limits to the annual flows which can be accommodated without damage to the social fabric that provides the basis of the country’s attraction to immigrants.

One obvious solution, the Report concludes, is to raise the happiness of people in the sending countries – perhaps by the traditional means of foreign aid and better access to rich-country markets, but more importantly by helping them to grow their own levels of trust, and institutions of the sort that make possible better lives in the happier countries.

For obvious reasons, people move to a happier community in order to make them happier. On reflection, when they see the nature of the social connections, and the quality of communities, governments and workplaces that underlie these happier lives, they see that the right answer is not to move to the happier communities but instead to learn and apply the lessons and inspirations that underlie their happiness.

Happiness is not something inherently in short supply, like gold, inciting rushes to find and much conflict over ownership; as “my gold” cannot be “your gold”. But happiness, unlike gold, can be created for all, and can be shared without being scarce for those who give; it even grows as it is shared (Report, p.40).