Published March 18, 2022, 9:07 AM
Finland has received the Happiness Nation award for the fifth year in a row. Our country has once again failed at the foot of the pedestal.
Young people watch the sunset in Montreux (VD).
AFP
Decidedly, Finland is invincible. With a score of 7.82 out of 10, the Scandinavian country of 5.5 million is once again named “the happiest country in the world”. It is ahead of Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands, consistently ranking first in the rankings. “The three biggest growths were in Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. The biggest setbacks are in Lebanon, Venezuela and Afghanistan, according to the World Happiness Report, an annual United Nations-sponsored survey launched ten years ago.
Lebanon, shaken by unrest and a severe economic crisis, thus falls to penultimate place with 2.95 points, behind Zimbabwe and immediately ahead of Afghanistan, which again died last this year with a score of 2.40. The study, published since 2012, primarily uses Gallup polls, which ask residents about their own levels of happiness, cross-referencing GDP and assessments of solidarity, personal freedom, and corruption levels to come up with an overall score.
According to the official ranking of about 150 countries, which takes into account data for the last three years, Germany and Canada dropped one spot to 14th and 15th respectively, slightly ahead of the US (16th, +3). France is in 20th place (+1), “the best ranking since the survey”, while the UK is 17th (unchanged).
Among other great powers, Brazil is at 38th (-3), Japan at 54th (+2), and Russia dropped to 80th (-4) in this edition, completed before the invasion of Ukraine. China moved up twelve places to 72nd, while India remained far down the rankings (136th) but moved up three places.
“The lesson of the World Happiness Report in recent years is that social solidarity, generosity among people, and honesty in government are critical to well-being,” commented one of the co-authors Jeffrey Sachs. “World leaders need to take this into account,” he pleads. The Scandinavian countries have made a raid since the report was created, with Norway winning in 2017 before Finland, and Denmark holding the top spot for a long time.
(AFP)