Despite the challenges and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic over the past year, Finland has maintained its status as the happiest country in the world.
This is according to the World Happiness Report 2021, which was released on Friday. In the top 10 happiest countries, nine were European.
Finland was followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Austria, the report found.
“We find year after year that satisfaction with life is said to be happiest in the social democracies of Northern Europe,” study co-author Jeffrey Sachs told The Associated Press. “People feel safe in those countries, so confidence is high. The government is seen as credible and fair, and mutual trust is high. “
Meanwhile, the US came in 19th, one place lower than last year.
The annual report is prepared by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and ranks 149 countries based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and the opinions of residents.
It also surveys respondents and asks them to rate on a scale of 1-10 how much social support they think they have when things go wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices, their awareness of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are. .
The report typically includes data from the past three years of studies to “increase sample size and reduce confidence limits,” according to a press release.
This year, however, analysts have also made a separate list of the happiest countries, based solely on the 2020 results, to see how the countries fared during the pandemic, regardless of the past years.
Finland also took first place on that list, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, German, Norway, New Zealand and Austria.
According to the press release, the authors of the report found that the most important factors for happiness were “ people’s trust in each other and in their government. ”
“We urgently need to learn from Covid-19,” Sachs said in a statement. “The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to work together and the difficulties of building cooperation in every country and worldwide.”
“The 2021 World Happiness Report reminds us that we should strive for well-being rather than mere wealth, which will indeed be fleeting if we don’t tackle the challenges of sustainable development much better,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.