The global sense of happiness has remained remarkably constant despite several crises in the world. This is the conclusion reached by an independent group of experts in the new World Happiness Report, which was published on Monday on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness proclaimed by the United Nations. For the sixth year in a row, Finland remains the clear leader among the countries with the happiest populations in the world - despite the greatly deteriorated security situation in Europe as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and Finland's accession to NATO, which has not yet been completed.

Behind the northernmost country in the EU, Denmark, Iceland, Israel and the Netherlands follow at some distance in the ranking, before co-NATO candidates Sweden as well as Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand complete the top ten. Year-on-year, Israel makes a rate from ninth to fourth. Germany comes in 16th place this time – two places worse than last year. Afghanistan and Lebanon are clearly the most unfortunate of the 137 countries surveyed.

Average happiness has remained remarkably stable

The participating scientists, who publish the report on the basis of Gallup surveys, calculate the ranking on the basis of data from the past three years. They have identified six key factors for happiness: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and the absence of corruption.

Despite several overlapping crises, life ratings remained remarkably stable in most populations of the world, the researchers wrote. In the years 2020 to 2022, which were strongly influenced by the corona pandemic, the global average values were as high as in the three years before the pandemic. According to the report, people are generally happier in countries where happiness and well-being are distributed as evenly as possible among the population.

"Average happiness and our country ranking have remained remarkably stable over the three Covid-19 years," said John Helliwell, a researcher involved in the report. Changes in the ranking represented continuous, long-term trends, such as the improved rankings of the Baltic states of Lithuania (20th), Estonia (31st) and Latvia (41st). Even in these difficult years, positive emotions are twice as widespread as negative ones.

Ukraine (ranked 92nd) and Russia (70th) are slightly higher up in the new report than a year ago, even though Ukraine's overall has declined minimally, unlike Russia's. "Despite the extent of suffering and damage in Ukraine, life ratings in September 2022 remained higher than after the annexation of 2014," the researchers wrote, referring to the year of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

According to the experts, this is due, among other things, to a much stronger sense of belonging and trust in the leadership around President Volodymyr Zelenskyj. Trust in governments has grown in both countries in 2022, but much more in Ukraine than in Russia. "The Russian invasion forged Ukraine into a nation," said one of the report's authors, Oxford professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve.