Since 2002, the World Happiness Report has detailed the world’s happiest countries based on several factors. As of 2020, the World Happiness Report determined that Finland is the happiest country in the world.
The report looks at countries with respect to their performance of six particular variables:
- Gross domestic product per capita
- Social support
- Healthy life expectancy
- Freedom to make your own life choices
- Generosity of the general population
- Perceptions of internal and external corruption levels
Finland was voted the “happiest country in the world” this year for the fourth time in a row, ahead of Denmark, Switzerland and Iceland, in a global ranking of well-being that has been affected in disparate ways by the pandemic.
Germany ranks 13th, Canada 14th, the UK 17th, the United States 19th and Spain 27th.
Europe monopolizes nine of the top ten places. Costa Rica is the first Latin American country on this list, in 16th place, followed by Uruguay (31st), Brazil (35th), Mexico (36th), Panama (41st) and Chile (43rd), in a list of 149 nations that takes into account data from the last three years.
The 149th country, that is, the most unhappy according to this list, is Afghanistan, at the bottom of the list along with several African countries.
The World Happiness Report 2021 focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared.
Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world have dealt with the pandemic.
In particular, we try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others.
2020 has been a year like no other. This whole report focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared. Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world have dealt with the pandemic. In particular, we try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others.
- The pandemic’s worst effect has been the 2 million deaths from COVID-19 in 2020. A rise of nearly 4% in the annual number of deaths worldwide represents a serious social welfare loss.
- For the living there has been greater economic insecurity, anxiety, disruption of every aspect of life, and, for many people, stress and challenges to mental and physical health.
Source: worldhappiness.report
