Last week the UK’s Charities Aid Foundation released the World Giving Index, described as the “largest study ever carried out into charitable behaviour across the globe”. The charitable behaviour of people in 153 different countries was compared. Three different types of charitable behaviour were considered: giving money, volunteering time and helping a stranger. The amount of giving was compared with each country’s GDP and the happiness of its population.
Malta was the country which had the largest percentage of people giving money, 83%. Turkmenistan was the country with the largest percentage of people giving their time to charitable causes, 61%. Liberia was the country with the largest percentage of people helping a stranger, 76%. But overall Australia and New Zealand came equal top of the World Giving Index, with the other top-ten countries being Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, USA, Netherlands, the UK, Sri Lanka and Austria.
There was found to be a high correlation between generosity and happiness. Each country was given a “wellbeing” score out of ten. The world average was 5.4. Australia had a wellbeing score of 7.4, while New Zealand had a score of 7.4. The highest rated country for wellbeing was Denmark, with a score of 8.0. The World Giving Index is based on data from Gallup’s WorldView World Poll.