Figure 9.7 Net happiness by country. On New Year’s Eve, 2012, individuals in 54 countries worldwide were asked, “As far as you are concerned, do you personally feel happy, unhappy, or neither happy nor unhappy about your life?” Countries were then rank-ordered by their net happiness score, calculated as the percentage of respondents who were happy minus the percentage of respondents who were unhappy. The resulting map depicts very happy countries that scored between 75% and 49% net happiness; happy countries that scored between 48% and 30% net happiness; somewhat happy countries that scored between 29% and 5% net happiness; and unhappy countries where the unhappy outnumbered the happy. The global net happiness average is 40%.