2024-03-24 18:32:24
Finland has again become the happiest country in the world in the ranking compiled by the UN, the Czech Republic is in the second ten at 18th place, while Slovakia has fallen to 45th place. At the opposite end of the ranking of 143 countries, Afghanistan ended up as the least happy country, and the people of Lebanon, Lesotho and Sierra Leone feel only slightly better.
In the World Happiness Report, which was published on Wednesday, it was again shown that the inhabitants of countries from Northern Europe are the most satisfied – after Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden were ranked first. The Nordic dominance is interrupted by fifth Israel, followed by the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg, and Switzerland and Austria round out the top ten.
Rising discontent among younger people has caused the United States and some major Western European countries to fall, with the US ranking 23rd in the new happiness index, down from 15th last year, and Germany falling from 16th to 24th.
The annual World Happiness Report is based on data from the US Gallup Institute and is analyzed by a global team now led by the University of Oxford. People in 143 countries and territories were asked to rate their lives on a scale of zero to ten, with ten representing their best possible life. The results for the last three years are averaged and a ranking is created.
In general, the rankings are loosely correlated with countries’ prosperity, but other factors such as life expectancy, social ties, personal freedom and corruption appear to influence individual rankings, Reuters wrote.
Disaffected young Americans
The United States dropped out of the top 20 for the first time, and according to analysts, this was caused by a large decline in the satisfaction of Americans under 30. While a global ranking of the happiness of those 60 and over would rank the United States in tenth place, a ranking of the lives of those under 30 alone places the United States in 62nd place.
These findings run counter to much previous well-being research, which finds that happiness is highest in childhood and early youth, then declines to its lowest level in middle age, and then rises around retirement. “Young people today, especially in North America, are experiencing a midlife crisis,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a professor of economics at Oxford University and one of the report’s editors, told Reuters.
Millennials and younger age groups in North America were significantly more likely than older age groups to mention their own loneliness. De Neve said young people’s happiness is likely to be reduced by a number of factors, including increased polarization on social issues, the negative aspects of social media and economic inequality, which makes it harder for young people to afford housing than in the past.
Central and Eastern Europe is going up
Although this phenomenon is most pronounced in the United States, age differences in happiness are also large in Canada and Japan, and to a lesser extent in France, Germany and Great Britain, which also fell lower in this year’s ranking than last year.
In contrast, the countries with the greatest welfare improvements include many former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. There, in contrast to richer countries, young people report a significantly better quality of life than older people, often at the same or better level than in Western Europe.
“Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania are in the top twenty and it is thanks to their young people,” added Jan-Emmanuel De Neve.