DUBAI: The UAE has recorded 7.2 points in life evaluation among UAE nationals, marking the 11th worldwide according to the World Happiness Report 2018, published by the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Announced on March 14 in Rome, the report says that the UAE has taken to the 20th place as the happiest country in the world, one rank up from last year, and maintained its rank as the happiest country in the Arab World.

This year, the World Happiness Report has seen the addition of new indicators to measure and compare the level of happiness among expatriate populations in host countries, due to the rise in the number of people residing outside of their home countries from 153 million to 244 million, in the period between 1990 and 2015, an increase reaching up to 60 per cent.

In the 2018 report, which ranks happiness of the world’s foreign-born population during the period 2005, 2017, the UAE ranked 19th among the happiest resident population, ahead of countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, France and Belgium. The ranking confirms the UAE’s position as a diverse and nurturing environment for people’s ambitions and aspirations, and its leading role in adopting the spirit of tolerance and openness for all segments of the society.

The survey found that people prefer to move to countries that have higher rates of happiness than their home countries if they have the opportunity to choose the country they wish to move to, and that levels of happiness depend on the quality of life and the quality of communities and social ties.

The World Happiness Report 2018 ranked Finland as the happiest country in the world, four ranks up from last year (fifth in 2017), followed by Norway in the second place (first in 2017), while Denmark dropped to third place (second in 2017). Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia topped the list of the happiest countries from fourth to tenth place.

The World Happiness Report draws on the results of the Gallup World Poll in 160 countries, covering more than 100 indicators based on seven themes to assess and measure different aspects of respondents’ daily lives.

The UAE ranked among the top seven in the world in 19 indicators adopted by the world poll, which is conducted annually to measure levels of people’s satisfaction and happiness.

The UAE ranked first globally in six indicators: convenience of city for people from different countries to live in, percentage of full-time employed population, satisfaction with efforts to preserve the environment, being healthy to perform daily activities, satisfaction with roads and highways, and availability of mobile phone for personal calls.

The country also came in second place in ranking satisfaction with the availability of quality health care, and belief that children in the country are treated with respect; in third place ranking the belief that city economic conditions are getting better; in fourth place in four indicators for feeling that standard of living is getting better, feeling well-rested, recommend your city to a friend as a place to live, and access to internet.

The UAE took the fifth place in three indicators ranking satisfaction with city of living, satisfaction with life after five years, satisfaction with freedom to make life choices; sixth place for satisfaction with standard of living; and seventh place for satisfaction with public transportation systems, and satisfaction with children’s opportunity to learn and grow.