We have always seen countries comparing themselves when it comes to the GDP, but there is another element which is gaining traction these days. It is nothing but the gold old happiness!
Not just numbers, but the overall wellbeing and happiness are critical indicators of a nation’s economic and social development. For the Betterment of the Human Condition, International Society for Quality of Life Studies started to study as well as award the countries in their World Happiness Report.
Finland Tops the Chart for 6Th Consecutive Year
This year, topping the chart is none other than the “Finland”, but this does not come as a surprise as the country has won the much coveted award for sixth consecutive year 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.
This report was released on Monday (March 20), which is celebrated as International Day of Happiness.
Speaking of the “Golden Sparrow” India, it ranked at 126 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.
Similar to last year list, as many Nordic countries rule the chart. Finland is followed by Denmark at number 2 and Iceland at number 3.
Nordic Countries Happier Than Other Countries
Touching on the topic of trust and Covid-19 response, the authors said in the document that “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”.
One of the authors, while speaking to CNN said that “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”.
India, which is the talk of town, when it comes to the growing economy. Albeit when it comes to the happiness, then the country is placed at number 126 in the report, below Nepal, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Notably, the Russia-Ukraine war caused a drop in the rankings of both the countries with Russia at 72 and Ukraine at 92nd spot.
