Report: Finland happiest again – Switzerland in 9th place
Published: Wednesday, Mar 20th 2024, 03:40
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For the seventh time in a row, Finland is the country with the happiest population in the world. This was revealed in the annual World Happiness Report, which was published on Wednesday to mark International Day of Happiness.
The top spots are once again largely occupied by countries from the north. Finland was followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel. Switzerland lost one place compared to the previous year and landed in ninth place. Germany made a significant downward leap and slipped from 16th to 24th place. The largest countries are no longer among the happiest 20 in the list - the USA also dropped: 23rd place instead of the most recent 15th place. In total, the ranking includes 143 countries.
In the report, the researchers looked at the period between 2021 and 2023, evaluating subjective assessments of the lives of the population living in the country.
"It's more a feeling of satisfaction"
The happiness researchers did not go into detail in the report about what exactly makes the Finns happier than any other people in the world. However, they did identify a number of key factors that generally make people happier, such as social support, income, freedom and the absence of corruption.
"So it's not necessarily happy in the sense of jumping up and down, of joy in the moment. It's more a feeling of satisfaction. I think that's an important point," Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, told the German Press Agency. The fact is that people in the Scandinavian countries rate their own lives very highly on these points and are satisfied.
Global inequality in happiness has increased by more than 20 percent in all regions and age groups over the past twelve years. According to the World Happiness Report, the unhappiest country is Afghanistan. There is a difference of around 6 points on the average happiness scale of 0 to 10 between Finland (7.7) and Afghanistan (1.7), the country with the happiest people. Switzerland has a score of 7.06 on the scale, compared to 7.24 in the 2023 World Happiness Report.
©Keystone/SDA
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