The annual World Happiness Report surveys 350.000 people in 95 countries with the aim of gauging how happy they are. In this year’s iteration, Germany has been ranked as the seventh-happiest country in the world.
Every year, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network conducts a survey of 350.000 people in 95 countries, in order to collate the data into the World Happiness Report. The researchers discern the happiness of a country using metrics like availability of social support, life expectancy, income per capita, personal and civil freedoms, and corruption. The authors rely on data from the Gallup World Poll to create the report.
Coronavirus has obviously had a big impact on people’s happiness over the past year, and so, the researchers have altered the criteria for this year’s World Happiness Report to reflect that. Researchers analysed people’s emotional response to the pandemic, governments’ responses and how trust in the government related to happiness.
For the fourth year running, Finland ranked as the happiest country in the world in 2021. In fact, the Scandinavian countries (Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) all made it into the top 10 again.
This list remains largely unchanged from previous years. However, there were large jumps for East and South Asian countries, as early government intervention and strict lockdown restrictions mitigated the effect of the virus on people’s lives. Croatia also made huge gains this year, jumping from 61 in 2020 to 23 in this year’s rankings.
Germany performed particularly well this year, jumping 10 places to land in seventh place. Happiness in Germany has largely increased due to better life evaluations from its citizens, with financial security and social stability playing a big part in this. The survey found that, until recently, Germans were largely happy with their government’s response to the pandemic.
The top 10 happiest places in the world, according to this year’s World Happiness Report, are:
You can find the World Happiness Report 2021, in full, here.