This emerged from the annual World Happiness Report, which was published on Wednesday on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness. In the report, scientists looked at the period between 2021 and 2023. Subjective assessments of the lives of the population living in the country were assessed. Austria slipped from eleventh place to 14th.
The top positions are once more largely occupied by countries from the north. Finland was followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel. In the list, the largest countries are no longer among the happiest 20 – the USA also went down: 23rd place instead of last place 15th. The ranking includes a total of 143 countries.
series of key factors
The happiness researchers did not go into detail in the report regarding exactly what makes the Finns happier than all other peoples on earth. However, they have identified a number of key factors that generally make people happier, such as social support, income, freedom and the absence of corruption. “So it’s not necessarily happy in the sense of jumping up and down, of joy in the moment. It’s more of a feeling of contentment. That’s an important point, I think,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report. The fact is that people in Scandinavian countries rate their own lives very highly in these points and are satisfied.
Survey in Linz: What do we need to be happy?
Global happiness inequality has increased by more than 20 percent across all regions and age groups over the past twelve years. According to the World Happiness Report, the unhappiest country is Afghanistan. There is a difference of around 6 points on the average happiness scale from 0 to 10 between the country of the happiest people, Finland (7.7) and Afghanistan (1.7).
