Generosity makes you happy

The World Giving Index is the largest project about global charitable behaviour. Released this year for the first time by the British-based Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), the report primarily used data from Gallup’s WorldView World Poll, an ongoing project carried out in 153 countries that together represent about 9 per cent of the world’s population.

The overall country score (measuring philanthropy) was calculated by taking into account three different kinds of charitable acts: giving money to an organisation, volunteering time to an organisation and helping a stranger, as well as an average of the three measures.

The results showed that helping a stranger is the main way that the world gives. In fact, a fifth of the world’s population had volunteered in the month prior to the interview, almost a third of the world’s population had given money to a charity, and 45 per cent of the world’s population had helped a stranger.

The WGI shows that countries and regions of the world “give” differently. An act that is considered charitable in one country may be seen as normal activity in another. In some countries charities fund and run services that in others are provided by the government.

The report, studying correlations between giving money, wealth and satisfaction with life, shows that the link between happiness and giving is stronger than the link between wealth and giving.

The conclusion? That happy nations are more likely to give than wealthy nations. This could trigger a positive cycle of giving: those who donate are likely to help improve the happiness of others, who in turn may be more likely to give to charities, starting a virtuous cycle.

Australia and New Zealand are, jointly, the most “giving” countries in the world, having both a World Giving Index Score of 57%. They predictably came out top, as they have “a long established history of philanthropy”, CAF points out.

Canada and Ireland, which also have a long tradition of philanthropy, ranked third. Near the top are also poorer countries, such as Sri Lanka, Guyana, Turkmenistan and Sierra Leone. People from Turkmenistan are, according to the survey, the most generous in the world with their time.

In the West African nation of Liberia, less than one tenth (8%) of the population gives money to charities every month. Yet, over three quarters of Liberian (76%) help a stranger every month, more than any other country in the world. Western and Southern Europe region shows the greatest variation of all regions between countries in percentage of population giving money – from 8% (Greece) to 83% (Malta). The countries near the bottom of list include Greece, India, and China.

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