Skopje, March 21 — Macedonians are among the unhappiest people in Europe. This is according to the annual Global Happiness Index, in which Macedonia ranks 84th out of 143 countries in the world. However, this represents an improvement of three places compared to last year.
In comparison to its neighboring countries, only Albania is ranked worse at 87th place, and in the wider region Turkey is in 98th place. In Europe, on the other hand, only Ukraine is ranked worse, in 105th place.
At the same time, Slovenia is the best-ranked country in the region (21st), followed by Kosovo (29th), Serbia (37th), Croatia (63rd), Greece (64th), Bosnia and Herzegovina (65th), Montenegro (76th) and Bulgaria (81st).
The index measures citizens' subjective feelings, through the visual "Cantril Scale", a simple question about how happy they feel and why.
According to the index, residents of Finland, Denmark and Iceland are the happiest, while residents of Afghanistan, Lebanon and Lesotho are the unhappiest.
"The broad country coverage and annual surveys of the Gallup World Poll provide an unmatched source of data about the quality of lives all over the globe. There are now enough years of data, going back to 2006, to enable us this year to plausibly separate age and generational patterns for happiness", John F. Helliwell, the report's founding editor, said.
The report is published for the 12th year in a row on March 20 – the International Day of Happiness according to the United Nations.