I don't know about that. Apparently I live in the worlds 3rd most happiest country. We moan about every little issue we have, it's ridiculous sometimes. And btw, we also have a really high suicide rate.
I wonder where North Korea came.... Also, having visited four out of the five of the top ranked countries (Switzerland the exception), my opinion is that the main reasoning for happiness might be that the people have an easy-going relaxed attitude towards life over there.
Switzerland's suicide rate is not that high, it's 45th in the world. South Korea is second highest(North Korea deny anyone has ever committed suicide), Lithuania are 3rd, Guyana 4th and Kazakhstan 5th. Some other big nations, China 7th, Japan 10th, Russia 13th, South Africa 22nd, France 26th, Cuba 31st, USA 33rd, UK 37th and New Zealand 38th(they should move to Australia).
Hm, it sounds different here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Switzerland I think I know where you got your informations from, the english and german wikipedia page show different results though.
Probably this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate I'd go with this list.
That page lists them as suicide deaths per 100,000 people, whereas the list I was working from was just total number of suicides. Which made it a bit surprising that India and Pakistan weren't higher.
Well suicide deaths per 100'000 people is a much more meaningful figure, right? But anyway, it seems like my perception was wrong. We really are a happy folk then .
