Happiness in Different Countries

Some people claim that people living poor countries are much happier than those in rich countries. Their argument is that people in rich countries are more depressed (and have higher obesity rate) because they live far away from each other and have more stress. To test this hypothesis, we need to look at real data. One measure of unhappiness is depression rate. Unfortunately, data for depression in poor countries are very scarce, mostly because people are struggling with basic health care, little do they have access to mental health care. However, we can take a look at an extreme form of depression–suicide. World Health Organization (WHO) compiles suicide rate of different countries, and publishes it on its website.

Based on WHO data, the countries with the highest suicide rate are neither too rich or too poor. These countries are mostly in Eastern Europe: Lithuania, Belarus, Russian and Hungary. Behind them are Japan and Sri Lanka. Except Japan, those top countries’ suicide rate can be explained by one thing: economic hardship. After Soviet bloc collapsed, unemployment rate rose sharply in these countries. Living standard dropped significantly. It is therefore not surprising that there is sharp rise of suicide rate in all these 3 countries: Lithuania, Belarus and Russia after 1990 (see per country chart at
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/).  Sri Lanka’s high suicide rate comes from poor farmers. Report on their abject poverty and lack of access to employment explains the reason. Similarly we see high suicide rate in Indian farmers recently, who cannot repay huge debt after drought. These data suggest that suicide is closely related to ability of making a living and access to social safety net.

The United States is ranked a mediocre 45^th among all 95 countries listed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_rate), while an extremely poor country Zimbabwe is ranked 55 in the list, also in the middle. This suggests that the wealth level of a country has little to do with its suicide rate. In poor countries like Zimbabwe, if people can get by with meager food, there is no reason to commit suicide.

The lowest suicide rate comes from Latin American countries (Jamaica, Honduras) and Middle East countries (Egypt, Jordan). In these countries, religion probably play a big role in preventing suicide. Catholic belief considers life sacred, thus forbids suicide. Islamic belief also forbids suicide.

Culture certainly plays a role in suicide. This can be seen in the high suicide rate in Japan (24 per 100,000 people) and South Korea (18), and the low suicide rate in Singapore (9.5) and Taiwan (7 in 1994) with similar income level. Even here, both Japan and South Korea have sharp increase of suicide rate after 2000, with the onset of their economic crisis. Japan also see significant drop of its suicide rate in 1960s after its economy took off: In 1955, the suicide rate was 25, while in 1965, it was only 15. The data for South Korea starts from 1985. But we also see a drop from 9 in 1985 to 7 (suicide per 100,000) in 1990.

By now, we can safely draw a conclusion that employment opportunity plays a big role in suicide rate of a country. The best way to combat suicide is economic relief and debt relief. When people have a way of making decent living, they will have hope and will less likely take their own life.