This year saw Finland crowned as the happiest nation for the seventh year in a row; but no Asian countries appear on the list until Singapore, in 30th place
On the occasion of the annual International Day of Happiness on March 20, the World Happiness Report (WHR) has released its list of the world’s happiest countries. In first place, for the seventh year in a row, is Finland. The highest-ranked Asian country, meanwhile, is Singapore, down at number 30, followed immediately behind by Taiwan.
This year’s rankings were based on survey results mainly collected before early October.
The report was originally inspired by Bhutan’s 2008 initiative to measure its “Gross National Happiness” to gauge the collective happiness and well-being of its population and guide its own policymaking.
Since WHR’s first ranking was published in 2012, it has, in essence, relied on answers to one simple question: on a scale from 0 (being the worst) to 10 (being the best), how would you rank your life?
Don’t miss: The kind kingdom: Rediscovering the meaning of happiness and community in Bhutan
To differentiate between countries, these individual answers are compared to six variables describing participants’ respective countries of origin, namely: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption. Researchers can then estimate how much the life evaluation answers correlate to these variables in different countries, and come up with a number—the “happiness score”—that forms the basis for ranking the individual countries.
This year is also the first time that the report has differentiated between age groups. This has revealed that, globally, younger groups tend to be happier than older ones, with the major exception being in the United States. East Asian countries have generally experienced an increase of happiness in every age group, while in South and Southeast Asian countries, happiness has generally declined across age groups.
The top ten countries are overwhelmingly in Scandinavia and northern Europe:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Sweden
- Israel
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Luxembourg
- Switzerland
- Australia