Immigrants living in Canada are very happy. In fact, these migrants are so happy with their new country and their decision to immigrate that they have voted Canada the seventh-best place in the world to be an immigrant or expat.
Canada has a long-standing reputation for being a society welcoming of immigrants and as such Canada has one of the most sophisticated immigration systems in the world. In fact, The United States of America’s immigration department is considering a similar system to replace their current Green Card Lottery system (or the Diversity Immigrant Program).
Canada’s immigrants ranked the country 11 spots higher than immigrants in the USA ranked their adoptive country.
Canada scored exceptionally well as the only North American country amongst the notoriously happy Nordic countries! This year Finland jumped 5 spots to take top honors in the ranking of countries that treat their immigrants the best. Norway placed second followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland round out the top five
The report which placed Canada in the seventh spot tracked the happiness of immigrants between 2015 to 2017 in 140 countries was co-edited by Canadian economist John F. Helliwell.
This year’s report is the first to also evaluate the countries where immigrants are happiest. Canada fared even better by that measurement, coming in fourth for most-accepting countries for migrants.
Helliwell said that it was also no coincidence that colder-climate countries tend to take top honours on the list and on past lists.
The top 10 countries are the same as the last two years with some exchanging of spots. Helliwell said Canada has ranked between fourth and seventh since the annual report was first published six years ago.
“An occasionally harsh climate is a good way of building the kind of co-operative spirit . . . and in fact, makes people happy to co-operate with each other in protecting and making life work,” he told a Canadian news channel last week.
The aspects taken into consideration in determining a happy life are; the gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and respondents’ own perception of their happiness based on global survey results in which people ranked from 1-10 their level of social support in times of need, their freedom of choice, how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.
The top 20 happiest countries for migrants to live in:
1. Finland
2. Norway
3. Denmark
4. Iceland
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. Sweden
10. Australia
11. Israel
12. Austria
13. Costa Rica
14. Ireland
15. Germany
16. Belgium
17. Luxembourg
18. United States
19. United Kingdom
20. United Arab Emirates