According to the 2023 World Happiness Report released on
Monday, Finland once again leads the ranking of the world's happiest countries consecutively,
for the sixth year. Even though its score (7.80) is considerably higher than the
rest of the countries, a significant portion of the top ten roundup are also
Nordic, with Denmark in second place (7.59), Iceland in third (7.53), Sweden in
sixth (7.40) and Norway in seventh (7.32).
Slightly further down the ranking stand the United States in 15th place and the United Kingdom in 19th, with the latter having now dropped positions for four years in a row. At the very bottom of the World Happiness Ranking are Zimbabwe (3.20), Sierra Leone (3.14), Lebanon (2.39) and Afghanistan (1.86).
This happiness index is found problematic by critics for
several different reasons. For one, the terminology of “happiness” is unclear for
someone who would debate that in the case of Finland at least, “satisfaction
with their lives” would have been a more exact summary. In a 2018 paper on the subject,
one Finnish writer pointed out that where Nordic countries were placed on highest
position for factors like GDP per capita and freedom from oppression, Latin
American countries such as Paraguay and Guatemala would have been considered
the happiest if the index was based on the amount of positive emotion people
experience, while African countries including Togo and Senegal would have
ranked higher when based on whether citizens experience their lives as
“meaningful.”
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s political commentator Marwan Bishara
questions an approach that places Israel in the top ten countries despite the
ongoing conflict, and Bahrain fairly high up the list despite “tight and
political control.”
The 2023 World Happiness ranking scores were drawn using a
three year average from 2020-22. Despite pandemic years and lockdowns, the war
in Ukraine, hikes in energy prices and living costs, figures remained fairly
similar to before the pandemic in many countries, with many citizens even
reporting higher levels of acts of kindness.
Infographic by: statista
