Imagine the happiest place on earth.

Most of you might say that it would be somewhere like sunny Hawaii, the Bahamas, or a beach resort in Singapore. However, according to the most recent report on happiness around the globe, the happiest country is actually Denmark. In the United Nation’s World Happiness Report 2016, the United States comes in at 13th place and the United Kingdom at 23rd. But what really surprises me is that five of the top ten countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — are in Scandinavia. It is extremely interesting to see that Scandinavian countries top the list even when they impose extremely high taxes, have a barren climate, and generally don’t seem like very nice places to live. In fact, the public impression of the Scandinavian and Nordic countries seems to be they are cold, dreary, snowy places once populated by Vikings.

So what exactly makes these nations the happiest? The report compares countries using six primary variables that researchers believe are the best predictors or indicators of the happiness of citizens in a country:

- GDP per capita, which is the average money each person in the country makes in a year;

- Healthy life expectancy, meaning the average of how long citizens live;

- Freedom to make life decisions, or how satisfied people are with their ability to “choose what to do with their lives;”

- Social support, which measures people’s perceptions that they have someone they “can count on” when “in trouble;”

- Freedom from corruption, or the perception of how widespread corruption is in both government and business; and

- Generosity, measured as a national average of people who have donated to a charity in the past month.

Scandinavian countries do fairly well for the criteria of GDP per capita. Money is an important aspect of the still not-so-clear forces that generate happiness among human beings. In most cases, having a certain amount of money ensures one has the minimum material foundation for happiness, like enough food to eat and a roof over one’s head. The World Bank reports that in 2015 the Scandinavian countries were all among the top 20 nations in terms of GDP per capita, with the highest being Norway (#4 at $74,734 per capita) and the lowest being Finland (#18 at $41,920 per capita).

However, though money is an important factor, I personally think that it is important only to the extent of meeting such needs as food, shelter, and education for yourself and your family. For instance, Brazil is happier than the country that has the highest GDP in the world — Luxembourg ($101,944 per capita) — so I believe there must be something more than money that renders the Scandinavian countries so happy.

The search for all the possible reasons that Scandinavia is so happy leads me to its widely recognized welfare system. Swedes pay up to almost 60% of their earnings in taxes. No matter how much one may balk at such a large number, they also enjoy massive benefits such as pensions, sick leave, parental leave, health care, education through college, and unemployment compensation. In Denmark, the government spends more on its youngest and oldest population per capita than any other country on earth, making it one of the friendliest and most caring countries.

This system of welfare is often called the Nordic model, and it has helped raise an average of 18.7% of the population above the poverty level. In comparison, the American welfare system helps only 10.9% of the population overcome poverty. These benefits help citizens in the Nordic countries live easier and less stressful lives, because they do not have to face problems such as fretting over paying off a college loan or worrying that they might be fired for taking maternity leave. I think this helps Scandinavians take risks because they always have their government’s social safety net to help with unemployment.

In my search for what constitutes happiness, I found that another reason Scandinavians are so happy is that they trust their government. This is why the Scandinavian welfare state works. The Scandinavian welfare state is built on trust; the Scandinavians believe the government will take care of their kids and spend their tax money wisely. Without this faith in their leaders, people would be scared that the government would waste their money. In addition, high trust rates have been linked with low crime rates and low corruption

As I struggle to find the secret of Nordic happiness, the issue of genetics occurs to me. In 2014, researchers at the University of Warwick found that genetics plays a role in happiness. They discovered a gene that releases serotonin, one of the four chemicals that make you happy (the others are dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins). They found that the closer its citizens are genetically to Scandinavians, the happier a country ranks, possibly because Scandinavians have a longer version of this gene. These researchers claim that one of the primary reasons that Scandinavians are happy is because they are genetically disposed to be happier than citizens of other countries.

However, I disagree with this argument because it is too deterministic. Genetics may play a role in determining how happy you are, but it is only one of many factors. Although happiness is just your brain releasing chemicals in response to your engaging in enjoyable activities, the most important thing is the events or circumstances that allow your brain to release these chemicals. These triggers are socially, culturally, and historically determined. For example, Scandinavia’s free education triggers happiness while China’s lack of free education triggers less happiness. It appears that Scandinavia is happier than China in terms of education, but this happiness is socially determined by the government’s providing free education.

Having looked into all these reasons that make Scandinavia so happy — money, welfare, trust, and genetics — I would like to compare the Nordic model of happiness with the situation in China, where I currently reside. As China becomes more and more wealthy, there has been a lot of discussion on whether money can give people happiness, with the question “你，幸福么？” or “Are you happy?” frequently asked in Chinese media. China ranks a mere 83 in the 2016 World Happiness Report, a far cry from the list’s top ten.

Clearly there are many problems that need to be solved, in spite of China’s ever-increasing wealth. First of all, even though it has the second highest GDP in the world (10,866,444 million dollars in 2015), China’s GDP per capita is a mere $7,990. Also, there is a huge disparity between the rich and poor. The Gini coefficient (a metric that ranks income inequality from 0 to 1, with zero being everybody having the same income and 1 being all income in the hands of a single individual) ranks China at 0.46. According to the United Nations, anything over 0.40 is a “severe disparity” in income. Meanwhile Scandinavian countries usually score at 0.25, making them some of the most egalitarian countries in the world. In fact, all of the Scandinavian countries score within the top 20 for income equality in the world. I see income inequality as extremely prevalent in Beijing — every day you can see the disparity between the rich and poor. Just five minutes away from my compound there is a village that is extremely worse off than mine, with people burning coal to stay warm in winter.

Although welfare in China is improving, China has a long way to go before it comes close to the Scandinavian reality. The minimum wage in China can be as low as 8 yuan (about $1.22) an hour, compared to an average minimum wage of $20 an hour in Denmark. In addition, the 274 million Chinese migrant workers, who work in the countryside and in urban factories, have little to no benefits. Because they are originally from rural areas they do not get the same social welfare as people from the city.

All of these factors contribute to the higher or lower rates of happiness in different countries. I believe that social support is the main reason that Scandinavians are so happy, and also dislike the reasoning that Scandinavians are genetically predetermined to be happy. I believe in nurture over nature in terms of what creates happiness in our lives. China and the United States have a long way to go before they will be as happy as Scandinavia, but the Scandinavian system would not work as well in other countries. While it offers a good starting point that other nations could adapt, China, the US, and others will have to take a somewhat different approach to achieving happiness. I am intrigued by how other countries will learn from the Nordic model and what changes they’ll make.