World’s happiest ranking goes to
Finland for fifth year in a row
People enjoy sunny weather on the waterfront in Helsinki.
Finland was crowned the happiest country in the world for
the fifth consecutive year, with a score significantly ahead of its
peers in the World Happiness Report 2022 ranking, published
by a body linked to the United Nations. However, the authors
detected, on average, a long-term moderate upward trend in
stress, worry, and sadness in most countries, as well as “a
slight long-term decline in the enjoyment of life,” they wrote.
The report uses global survey data to report on how
people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries
around the world, with the ranking based on a three-year
average. Key variables that contribute to explaining people’s
life evaluations include healthy life expectancy, generosity,
social support, freedom to make life choices, perceptions of
corruption, and the gross domestic product per capita (an
indicator that measures a country’s economic output per
person, that is calculated by dividing the total gross domestic
product of a country by its population).
“World leaders should take heed,” Jeffrey Sachs, director
of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia
University, said. “Politics should be directed as the great
sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not
the power of the rulers.”