Bermuda is one of the happiest countries in the world.

This is according to a research project that has taken in some of the biggest world surveys and places the jewel of the Atlantic at number 11 out of 150 countries.

Martijn Burger, academic director at the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organisation (EHERO), is to present the findings at the upcoming TEDx Bermuda talk at the Fairmont Southampton next Saturday.

The organisation is a multidisciplinary research centre at the Erasmus University Rotterdam that has studied subjective enjoyment of one’s life as a conceptual focus.

It gathers data from worldwide surveys and gauges levels of happiness through factors including schooling, income, job satisfaction, and family and other social relationships.

Mr Burger told The Royal Gazette: “We made an estimate for Bermuda in terms of life expectancy and happiness. You are doing very well.

“We measure social progress and quality of life. You can measure it in different ways — we focus on happiness. Most organisations focus on measuring the conditions for a good life. Look at the United Nations, which has a human development index, and they focus, for example, on schooling and GDP.

“Income and schooling are conditions but not necessarily an outcome. We focus on the outcomes and say a good life is basically a long and happy life, and we try to measure that in one way by means of ‘happy life years’ which is typically in the identification of a long life.

“It is also used as an indication of health of the population, which is basically the subjective enjoyment of life as a whole.

“Within our organisation or within the field of happiness studies we are looking at why some are more happy than others and there are a number of factors that stand out: income in part — can you satisfy your basic needs in terms of shelter and food?

“Do you have work or not? Do you have work which you enjoy and freedom at a country level? What is most important is family and friendships — having social relationships is key to people’s happiness.”

Mr Burger is making the presentation on behalf of his colleague, Ruut Veenhoven, who provided the initial findings.

The research institute used data from surveys across the world to determine people’s levels of happiness on a scale of one to ten.

That figure was then multiplied by the life expectancy to find a total of “happy life years”. According to the database, Costa Rica tops the happiness chart, then Iceland, Switzerland and Denmark.

Finland and Norway also make the top ten, suggesting Scandinavia is a happy place to be, while Canada is in eighth place. The United States comes 19th, Britain is 23rd, Dominican Republic 34th, with Trinidad and Tobago 50th.

The least happy countries are Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Burundi and, in last place, Zimbabwe.

• To view a full list of the top twenty countries on the happiness list, click on the PDF under ‘Related Media’.