Finland has been named the happiest place in the world for a fourth year running, in an annual UN-sponsored report. The World Happiness Report saw Denmark in second place, then Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. New Zealand was again the only non-European nation in the top 10. The UK fell from 13th to 17th place.
Data from analytics researcher Gallup asked people in 149 countries to rate their own happiness. Measures including social support, personal freedom, gross domestic product (GDP) and levels of corruption were also factored in.
The country deemed the most unhappy in the world was Afghanistan, followed by Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. There was a “significantly higher frequency of negative emotions” in just over a third of the countries, the report authors said, likely pointing to the effects of the pandemic.
However, things got better for 22 countries. Several Asian countries fared better than they had in last year’s rankings, while China moved to 84th place from 94th.
“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives,” John Helliwell, one of the report’s authors, said in a statement.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56457295
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