There’s cause for optimism in the latest report on world happiness.
For one, benevolence is about 25% higher than it was pre-pandemic.
“Benevolence to others, especially the helping of strangers, which went up dramatically in 2021, stayed high in 2022,” John Helliwell, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, said in an interview with CNN.
And global happiness has not taken a hit in the three years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Life evaluations from 2020 to 2022 have been “remarkably resilient,” the report says, with global averages basically in line with the three years preceding the pandemic.
For the sixth year in a row, Finland is the world’s happiest country, according to World Happiness Report rankings based largely on life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll.
The Nordic country and its neighbors Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Norway all score very well on the measures the report uses to explain its findings: healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support, low corruption, generosity in a community where people look after each other and freedom to make key life decisions.
But since we can’t all move to Finland, is there something other societies can learn from these rankings?
“Is it, are they doing things that we wish we’d seen before and we can start doing? Or is it something unique about their climate and history that make them different? And fortunately, at least from my perspective, the answer is the former,” said Helliwell, who is a professor emeritus at the Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia.
Taking a holistic view of the well-being of all the components of a society and its members makes for better life evaluations and happier countries.
“The objective of every institution should be to contribute what it can to human well-being,” the report says, which includes accounting for future generations and preserving basic human rights.
I – Word Understanding
Benevolence – an act of kindness
Optimism – ways of thinking and seeing things
II – Have Your Say
1, What makes Finland the happiest country in the world? What could be the common psychological reasons behind this remark?
2, What can you say about the lifestyle of people in Finland?
