More On Giving and Happiness

Since I just mentioned it as a key to personal happiness, it was serendipitous to come across this newspaper article about giving in the Ottawa Citizen. Apparently both Canadians and Americans do quite well. I've pasted a few excerpts below, but you can read the whole article at The Ottawa Citizen's website.

Canada ranks third in a global "generosity" survey, in which the key overall finding is that being happy is a greater impulse for people to give their time and money to charity than being rich.

Canadians are on par with the Irish for giving, and surpassed only by the Australians and New Zealanders, according to the survey — the largest ever to study global charitable behaviour.

... it is important to recognize both giving of time as well as money since a simple measure of financial donations would, on the whole, make the wealthiest nations appear most charitable ...

On a regional basis, North Americans — defined by the study as Canadians and Americans collectively — are the most willing in the world to help strangers.