Finland has been named the happiest country in the world in the annual World Happiness Report. This is the sixth consecutive year that they have won the coveted prize due to high scores in factors the report uses to measure happiness: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and low corruption. The report was released on Monday (March 20), which is celebrated as International Day of Happiness. India is ranked 125 based on the various parametres of happiness.
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and is based on global survey data from people in more than 150 countries, said CNN.
This year’s list is similar to past rankings with many of the Nordic countries in top spots. While Denmark is at number 2, Iceland is ranked number 3.
“The Nordic countries merit special attention in light of their generally high levels of both personal and institutional trust. They also had COVID-19 death rates only one-third as high as elsewhere in Western Europe during 2020 and 2021- 27 per 100,000 in the Nordic countries compared to 80 in the rest of Western Europe,” the authors of the report said in the document.
Speaking to CNN, one of the authors John Helliwell said, “Benevolence to others, especially the helping of strangers, which went up dramatically in 2021, stayed high in 2022.”
“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,” the author added.
India, one of the fast growing economies, was placed at number 126 in the report, below Nepal, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Interestingly, the Russia-Ukraine war caused a drop in the rankings of both the countries. While Russia is ranked 72, Ukraine is at the 92nd spot.
