Finland Tops World’s Happiness Index for 7th Year: According to the UN’s World Happiness Report published on Wednesday, Finland remains the world’s happiest country for a seventh consecutive year.
Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden trailed Finland among the 10 most cheerful countries.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2020, resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe.
In the report published more than a decade ago, the United States and Germany did not rank among the 20 happiest nations.
Finland Tops World’s Happiness Index for 7th Year: Where Does India Stand?
Costa Rica and Kuwait entered the top 20 at 12 and 13, respectively.
There are no longer any of the world’s largest countries included in the list of the happiest countries.
“In the top 10 countries, only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. In the whole of the top 20, only Canada and the UK have populations over 30 million.”
Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Jordan have reported the steepest declines in happiness since 2006-10, whereas Serbia, Bulgaria, and Latvia have reported the highest increases.
Among the factors that determine the happiness ranking are self-reported life satisfaction, GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption.
Living close to nature and maintaining a healthy work-life balance are two of the factors that contribute to Finns’ life satisfaction, according to happiness researcher Jennifer De Paola at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
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Also, Finns may have a more realistic notion of what a successful life is, unlike Americans who often equate success with financial gain, she said.
Finland’s strong welfare system, trust in state authorities, low levels of corruption, and free healthcare and education were also important factors.
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“Finnish society is permeated by a sense of trust, freedom, and high level of autonomy,” De Paola said.
Generally, younger generations are happier than older generations, but not everywhere.
North America, Australia, and New Zealand have seen dramatic declines in happiness among groups under 30 over the past decade, with older generations now happier than younger ones.
Conversely, in Central and Eastern Europe, happiness increased substantially at all ages during the same period, while in Western Europe, happiness levels were similar for all ages.
Happiness inequality increased in every region except Europe, which authors described as a “worrying trend”.
Among the old and in Sub-Saharan Africa, the rise was particularly evident, reflecting inequalities in income, education, health care, social acceptance, trust, and the existence of supportive social environments at the family, community and national levels, the authors wrote.
