Finland has for the sixth consecutive year been nominated the happiest nation in the world. This year's World Happiness Report places Belgium 17th in the index compiled by US scientists.
Monday 20 March marks International World Happiness Day. In recognition of the day, the report compiles the results of various studies on how happy citizens say they are. Six key metrics are used: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.
“The ultimate goal of politics and ethics should be human wellbeing,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, who worked on the report and noted that governments are increasingly using this analysis to improve policies.
"Wellbeing is not a ‘soft’ and ‘vague’ idea but focuses on critical areas of people's lives: material conditions, mental and physical health, personal virtues, and good citizenship."
Finland has been named the country with the happiest population in the world for the sixth consecutive year, followed by the people of Denmark. Lithuania is the only new country in the top 20, up more than 30 places since 2017. Belgium this year ranked in 17th place in the list of happy countries, up two spots from last year.
Resilient happiness
In this year's report, the researchers noted that people's felt happiness has proved "remarkably resilient" during the pandemic and the global crises that ensued (the cost of living and energy crises). The global life satisfaction averages in the last three years (2020-2022) are as high as the averages in the 2017 to 2019 period, before the pandemic.
“Changes in rankings that have taken place have been continuations of longer-term trends. Even during these difficult years, positive emotions have remained twice as prevalent as negative ones and feelings of positive social support twice as strong as those of loneliness," said John Helliwell of the Vancouver School of Economics.
The researchers highlighted that for a second year, various forms of everyday kindness, such as helping a stranger, donating to charity, and volunteering, are above pre-pandemic levels. "Acts of kindness have been shown to both lead to and stem from greater happiness."
The 20 happiest countries in the world are:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Israel
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- New Zealand
- Austria
- Australia
- Canada
- Ireland
- United States
- Germany
- Belgium
- Czech Republic
- United Kingdom
- Lithuania
Meanwhile, war-torn Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, with average life evaluations more than five points lower (on a scale running from 0 to 10) than in the ten happiest countries.
The 20 unhappiest countries in the world are:
- Afghanistan
- Lebanon
- Sierra Leone
- Zimbabwe
- Congo
- Botswana
- Malawi
- Comoros
- Tanzania
- Zambia
- Madagascar
- India
- Liberia
- Ethiopia
- Jordan
- Togo
- Egypt
- Mali
- Gambia
- Bangladesh
Russia is ranked number 70 this year while Ukraine finds itself in 92nd place. “The devastating impact of the war is evident to all, and so we also find that wellbeing in Ukraine has taken a real hit”, noted Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.
“What is surprising, however, is that wellbeing in Ukraine fell by less than it did in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, and this is thanks in part to the extraordinary rise in fellow feeling across Ukraine as picked up in data on helping strangers and donations – the Russian invasion has forged Ukraine into a nation” added De Neve.
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According to the researchers, this is "due to a stronger sense of common purpose, benevolence and trust in the Ukrainian leadership," which is mirrored in the trust growing in both countries. However, this was much more the case in Ukraine than in Russia. Ukrainian support for Russia's leadership dropped to zero.
Find the full ranking and scores here.
