World's Happiest People

Last year, Malta was joint first with the Danes in the annual World Database of Happiness compiled by Prof Ruut Veenhoven from Erasmus University. This time, Malta is the sole leader in the world happiness stakes. The research was published this month in the Journal of Happiness Studies. Writing in today's Guardian, Oliver Burkeman says that the news that Maltese people are the happiest in the world was greeted in Malta with 'cheerful incredulity':

According to the World Database of Happiness, compiled by Professor Ruut Veenhoven, of Rotterdam's Erasmus University, the 400,000 residents of this rocky Mediterranean archipelago are the most likely to describe themselves as happy - 74% did so - with Denmark, Switzerland and Colombia close behind. (The US is at 16, the UK at 21; Zimbabwe, Moldova and Ukraine came last.) Clearly, the Maltese know something we don't, and it's a testament to their sunny disposition that none of them swore and hung up the phone when a journalist interrupted their day to try to find out what it was..

The low-expectations explanation for Maltese happiness seems a little defeatist, but there may be something to it. Perhaps modest levels of ambition (along with a small population) is one of the reasons for the fact that there are - and I'm just going to go out on a limb and say this - only two living Maltese people famous outside Malta: the lateral thinker Edward de Bono and the cartoonist Joe Sacco.

That certainly seemed to be the view of Rosalba Axiak, a gestalt psychotherapist working in Mosta. "You should consider the factor of religion," she said. Malta is 97% Catholic - "and part of our religion says you have to be happy with what you have. Don't go running after impossible dreams."

Personally, I find this all rather dispiriting, but that's not the way they see it in Malta. Of course, its people have their fair share of problems - Axiak's clients mainly have relationship issues - and, she said frankly, "it wouldn't be the ideal scenario" for a psychotherapist if they didn't. But the Maltese, cross? Far from it.

Dorothy Wade reports on the new science of happiness; Abi Daruvalla talks to Prof Ruut Veenhoven; Steven Swinford writes on the good times, with comments by Maltese diplomat; More from J'Accuse and Lanzarote and Reesa.