Costa Rica is happy — but not too much

(PHOTO: DAVID COLEMAN)

The new United Nations’ World Happiness Report ranks Costa Rica among the happiest countries on earth, and as the happiest one in Latin America. So when I interviewed Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis this week, I couldn’t help asking him why there is so much discontent in his country.

According to the U.N. World Happiness Report, based among other things on a Gallup poll in 158 countries asking people about their levels of happiness, the happiest countries in the world are Switzerland (1), Iceland (2), Denmark (3), Norway (4) and Canada (5). Costa Rica (12) is the top-ranked Latin American country, and is listed three places above the United States (15).

Asked how he explains the fact that his country — one of Latin America’s most stable and democratic ones, but not among the world’s richest — ranked so well, Solis told me that Costa Rica has a “virtuous combination” of democratic stability, no armed forces —they were banned in 1948 — a relatively good social security system and an economy based on small businesses. All of this has helped the country improve its living standards over more than a century, he said.

So why are other domestic polls in Costa Rica showing high levels of unhappiness? I asked him. A recent poll by the University of Costa Rica’s Center of Research and Political Studies (CIEP) showed that a whopping 60.6 percent of Costa Ricans think that the country is doing “badly” or “very badly.”

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