Lifestyle > Happiness net: Countries Compared

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan measures its economic development and growth not with the conventional measure of GDP, but with the holistic, multidimensional measure of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which is measured according based on economic self-reliance, environmental preservation, cultural promotion and good governance. The government’s goal is to balance economic progress with the spiritual and emotional well-being of the people. <p>Bhutan is known for shunning conventional development and going its own way. The first foreign tourists didn’t come to the country until 1974, and the government allows only 9,000 to enter per year, each of whom pay fees of $200 per day. Television and the Internet arrived only in 1999. Most recently, the Government of Bhutan made it illegal to sell tobacco or smoke in public, becoming the first officially non-smoking nation.

Response for Alzidi99 -- the Sultanate of Oman is yet to covered by the <a href=http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/>World Values Survey</a>, which measures happiness among other things such as tolerance. In the West Asia region, the countries covered by the surveys to date are Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Israel and Jordan.

For those wondering how the statistics work, it says so under the weighted average. Is says, "DEFINITION: This statistic is compiled from responses to the survey question: "Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?". The "Happiness (net)" statistic was obtained via the following formula: the percentage of people who rated themselves as either "quite happy" or "very happy" minus the percentage of people who rated themselves as either "not very happy" or "not at all happy". "

The reason some countries with a high score have a high percentage of non-believers is that there is a relation between how someone is doing socially and whether he is religious (Dawkings, speach at Ted). And obviously there is a relation between the social performance of someone and the measured happiness of this person.
Therefore, to say that someone becomes happier of not believing is not true, however, the chance that someone who doesn't believe is happier can be percieved as true.

"Why does the American one seem fake?"

Because your prejudiced "hunch" is more reliable than the statistics reported... of course the US one is the only "fake" one, how convenient.

Most of these countries have high percentage of non-believers (People with no religion).