Finland has taken the top spot for the fourth consecutive year as the happiest country in the world despite the pandemic’s devastating effects according to the UN-curated World Happiness Report 2021. The report saw Denmark in second place, then Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. New Zealand was again the only non-European nation in the top 10. The UK fell from 13th to 17th place.
On the other hand, India is the fourth-least happy country in the world. The only countries ranked lower than India were Jordan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
The rankings were given on the basis of ‘how happy the citizens of a nation perceive themselves to be’. The report aimed at exploring the influence of Covid-19 on the subjective well-being of people. According to the findings, factors most conducive to sustaining high levels of happiness in the face of the pandemic were mutual trust in each other and confidence in the government.
“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives. One possible explanation is that people see COVID-19 as a common, outside threat affecting everybody and that this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and fellow-feeling,” said John Helliwell, one of the editors of the report and a professor in the University of British Columbia.
The World Happiness Report, conducted annually since 2012, is calculated based on such measurements as GDP per capita, level of social support, life expectancy, observance of civil liberties, job security, level of corruption, as well as the results of public opinion polls.
The report suggests that the average age of a country’s population, whether it’s an island, and its proximity to other highly-infected countries were contributing factors in the disparity between death rates globally.
