Finland has once again won the title as the happiest country in the world and Singapore has once again won the title as the happiest country in Asia. This was concluded in the annual world happiness report by the United Nations, which was published on 20 March 2024.
Icy Finland has won the title for the seventh year in a row and Singapore is also not a first-time winner, as it also won the title in 2021 and 2022. Globally, Singapore ranked as the 30th happiest country or territory.
The report was introduced in 2012 and was a part of the UN’s sustainable goals. Since then the report is published yearly and it uses data from the US market research company Gallup and organisations such as the World Bank and the World Health Organisation (WHO). 143 countries and territories are ranked in the report.
Individuals are asked to evaluate on their own perceptions in polls, where they were asked to rank their happiness on a scale from one to eight. Then six key factors are used to explain variations of the life evaluation in order to analyze external factors. The six factors are: the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity and perception of corruption.
The Scandinavian countries generally score high in the report. This year Denmark got in second place, Sweden in fourth place and Norway in seventh place.
The report is by some criticized for not taking cultural variations in how happiness is experienced in different countries into consideration. For example the media outlet Al jazeera criticizes that the GDP per capita does not measure income inequality and that certain parts of the populations are not included in the poll. This includes citizens in prison or residents of areas, where the safety of the interviewing staff is threatened.
Sources: worldhappiness.report & Al jazeera
