According to the annual World Happiness Report published on Wednesday, March 20th 2024, for the seventh year in a row, Finland has remained the happiest country in the world.
In the same vain, Fiinland’s Nordic neighbours Sweden, Denmark and Iceland also retained their places in the top 10.
However, growing unhappiness, especially among young people, has witnessed other Western countries drop down the index, with the United States and Germany dropping out of the top 20 for the first time since the report’s first edition more than a decade ago.
The United States and Germany came in 23rd and 24th respectively. In turn, Costa Rica and Kuwait entered the top 20 at 12 and 13, while Eastern European countries Serbia, Bulgaria and Latvia reported the biggest increases in happiness.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan, bedeviled by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, occupied the last place.
The survey mandates citizens in 143 countries and territories to evaluate their lives on a scale from zero to 10, taking into account factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
The report which coincided with the International Day of Happiness on March 20th, noted that the happiest countries no longer included any of the world’s largest countries.
According to the reports, in the top 10 countries, only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. In the whole of the top 20, only Canada and the UK have populations over 30 million.
Also, previous research into well-being often found happiness to be highest in childhood and early teens, before falling in middle age and then rising again upon retirement.
However, the report revealed that in some countries, today’s younger generations were more prone to loneliness than older age groups.
University of Oxford economics professor and report editor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve noted that, “Youth, especially in North America, are experiencing a mid-life crisis today,”
De Neve associated the increasing unhappiness among Western youth with a range of factors including the negative aspects of social media, increased polarization over social issues, and economic inequality that made it harder for young people to afford their own homes than in the past.
