Regionally, Latin America has the greatest proportion of people (32 percent) saying they are ‘very happy’, followed by North America with 27 percent and then followed by Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa with 24 percent each.

It is noted that 22 percent of the global population reported being ‘very happy’ now in comparison with 20 percent in 2007. It was also seen that the highest range of world happiness was between March and April 2010 when the number was at its highest point of 26 percent. Clearly there are numerous events and happenings that cause happiness to go up and down.

Comparing 2007 to 2011, in the “very happy” group, it was noted that the greatest improvements are found in Turkey which is up by 16 points since 2007, followed by Mexico which is up by 10 points, Australia which is up by 7 points, Japan which is up 6 by points and India and Canada each up by 5 points.

Also, of the 24 countries measured, less than half (9 countries) have experienced increases in happiness intensity compared with 13 that dropped and 2 countries with no change.  The countries that indicated the greatest drop in happiness intensity were Brazil (down by 9 points) followed by Indonesia (down by 7 points), Russia (down by 6 points) and South Africa (down by 5 points). The United States, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Poland and France showed a drop by 1 point each.

The survey was conducted on 18,687 adults twice annually until March 2010 and then the survey became monthly. The countries include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.