Edging ahead of the US and the UK, Ireland is ranked 13th happiest country in the world by The World Happiness Report.
This year was the tenth anniversary of The World Happiness Report. Ireland has climbed two places from 15th in last year’s annual UN-sponsored index.
This means we sit three places ahead of the United States and four places ahead of the United Kingdom.
In the annual index, Finland has come out on top for the past five years running. Northern Europe in general do very well in the report, with Denmark in second place and Iceland in third.
The World Happiness Report – how do they measure it?
According to the report, a country’s happiness is scaled from nought to ten. They use global survey data based on an individual’s own assessment of their happiness across a three year time period.
Irish people are renowned for being a happy bunch, so it’s no surprise where we stand. The World Happiness Report also considers social support, GDP, personal freedom, and levels of corruption as factors in consideration.
As such, the countries that fall at the bottom of the list are Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan. A co-author of the report, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, attributes this to the damage war can inflict onto someone’s happiness.
Another co-author, Jeffrey Sax, outlines that this report should be taken seriously, and that world leaders should “take heed” of the index.
The report was compiled before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The pandemic – how did it affect people’s happiness?
For this year’s World Happiness Report, the authors also took in social media data to get a reference on people’s emotions before and after the pandemic started.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they observed strong levels of general “anxiety and sadness” in 18 different countries. In contrast, however, they noted that anger levels generally decreased.
A country that has dropped significantly on the scale in the last decade is Canada. They ranked fifth in the report ten years ago, they now rank 15th.
The World Happiness report prides itself in being able to analyse the factors that contribute to a country’s drop in happiness, which includes mistrust in government.
Not all bad – a rise in generosity
Despite the pandemic, wars, and other economic factors, authors of The World Happiness Report noted that acts of kindness rose significantly in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic years.
The three acts of kindness, monitored in the Gallup World Poll, include helping strangers, volunteering, and giving donations. All three acts were acted out more in every part of the world since before the pandemic began.
In the end, Ireland ranked 13th happiest country in the world. That is a pretty excellent ranking! It’s no surprise, really, since Ireland was ranked one of the best countries in the world in 2021. However, how many people want to move to Finland now?
