The United Arab Emirates has fallen to become the 28th happiest country in the world, down from 20th last year, according to the 2016 World Happiness Report .
However, while this change seems dramatic, the reality is much less so. For the first time, the annual report included expatriates in its polling in several Gulf countries. This addition caused the significant change in the UAE's rank.
"The United Arab Emirates was especially affected by the changes in survey methods, in part because of its newly sampled non-Emirati population. This has caused its ranking to drop for technical reasons unrelated to life in the UAE," the report says . "The UAE provides a good example case, as it has the largest population share of expatriates among the Gallup countries, and has sample sizes large enough to make a meaningful comparison. Splitting the UAE sample into two groups would give a 2013-2015 Emirati ladder average of 7.06 (ranking 15th ... ), and a non-Emirati average 6.48 (ranking 31st ), very close to the overall average of 6.57 (ranking 28th .)"
Ranking 157 countries, the report looks at key factors such as per capita gross domestic product, healthy years of life expectancy and social support. Denmark came in No. 1 on the ranking, up two spots from third place last year. The UAE remained the happiest Arab country, followed by Saudi Arabia at No. 34 and Qatar at No. 36. Not too surprisingly, considering the country's ongoing civil war, Syria came in second to last on the ranking at No. 156.
Here is the complete ranking of Arab countries according to the report
- UAE (28)
- Saudi Arabia (34)
- Qatar (36)
- Algeria (38)
- Kuwait (41)
- Bahrain (42)
- Libya (67)
- Somalia (76)
- Jordan (80)
- Morocco (90)
- Lebanon (93)
- Tunisia (98)
- Palestine (108)
- Iraq (112)
- Egypt (120)
- Mauritania (130)
- Sudan (133)
- Comoros (138)
- Yemen (147)
- Syria (156)