International Day of Happiness 2023: Major nations drop out of top 20 in new happiness rankings

There are reasons for optimism.

Because the covid pandemic hasn’t actually affected global happiness, scientists have found.

The Nordic countries once again dominated the World Happiness Report 2023.

While Finland was also named the happiest country in the world for the sixth year in a row, in the annual UN-sponsored index.

Scroll down to see the full ranking list of the 137 countries involved.

Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for the sixth consecutive year, in an annual index sponsored by the UN. In the photo, Helsinki, Finland

Eight of the ten happiest nations are in Europe, with Denmark coming in second, with 7.58 points. In the photo, Copenhagen, Denmark

It was followed by Iceland, Israel and the Netherlands, which registered scores of 7.53, 7.47 and 7.40 respectively. Pictured above, Akureyri in North Iceland

Despite several overlapping global crises, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, most countries saw global averages of life satisfaction between 2020 and 2022 as high as they were in the years before the pandemic, the researchers found.

Interviews with more than 100,000 people in the 137 ranked countries also showed significantly higher levels of benevolence globally than before the pandemic.

The World Happiness Report, now in its eleventh year, is based on people’s own assessment of happiness, as well as economic and social data.

Assigns a happiness score on a scale of zero to 10, based on an average of data over a three-year period.

This year, the authors also used data from social media to compare people’s emotions before and after the covid-19 pandemic.

Eight of the ten happiest nations are in Europe, with Denmark coming in second, with 7.58 points.

It was followed by Iceland, Israel and the Netherlands, which registered scores of 7.53, 7.47 and 7.40 respectively.

The UK fell three places from last year to 19th with 6.80 points, the figures show, behind the US.

Canada follows in 13th place, two places higher than last year’s lowest ranking.

Lithuania is the only new country in the top twenty, moving up more than 30 places since 2017, while France dropped out of the top 20, ranking 21st.

War-scarred Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, retaining the bottom spots, with average life assessments more than five points lower than in the top 10 happiest countries.

Sierra Leone also fell to 135th position, ranking as the third most unhappy country with 3.14 points.

“Our country’s average happiness and rankings, both for emotions and life evaluations, have held remarkably stable over the three years of Covid,” said John Helliwell, Canadian economist and editor of the World Happiness Report. .

He added: ‘The changes in rankings that have taken place have been the continuation of longer-term trends, such as the increases seen in the rankings of the three Baltic countries.

“Even during these difficult years, positive emotions have remained twice as frequent as negative ones, and feelings of positive social support have been twice as strong as feelings of loneliness.”

War-scarred Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, retaining the bottom spots, with average life assessments more than five points lower than in the top 10 happiest countries. Pictured above, Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh Province, Afghanistan

It is the first year that the rankings have taken into account Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with Ukraine ranked 92nd and Russia 70th.

Both countries shared the global increases in benevolence during 2020 and 2021.

But during 2022, benevolence rose sharply in Ukraine but fell in Russia.

Despite the extent of suffering and damage in Ukraine, life assessments in September 2022 remained higher than after the 2014 annexation.

Analysts believe this is because Ukrainians now have a stronger sense of common purpose, benevolence, and trust in the Ukrainian leadership.

He study is carried out by the UN-backed Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.