Jamaica is ranked as the 56th happiest country in the world, below the island states of Japan (54) and Mauritius (55) and just above South Korea (57), according to the UN-supported report, which was released on Wednesday.

That compares to a ranking of 76 for last year’s report — an improvement of 20 spaces. Jamaica’s old space is now taken by Hong Kong.

The improvement represents a turnaround from the 2016 report when Jamaica had the 12th largest rate of decline in happiness among the countries in the report — and ranked at 73.

The World Happiness Report 2018 surveys the state of global happiness and ranks 156 countries by their happiness level, by examining elements such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, perceived corruption and generosity.

Jamaicans are significantly happier than people from the island of Hispaniola, with the Dominican Republic ranked at 83 — compared to 86 last year, and Haiti ranked close to the bottom at 148, compared to 145 last year.

But Jamaica was not the happiest Caribbean state by a long shot. Trinidad and Tobago was ranked at 38, between Colombia (37) and Slovakia (39). Fellow Caricom member Belize also scored higher, at 49.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/jamaica-moves-up-20-spaces-in-world-happiness-report-but-still-lags-much-of-the-caribbean-area_127870?profile=1283&template=MobileArticle