The 2021 World Happiness Report (WHR) has arrived. For this ninth annual report, unsurprisingly, the focus is on the effects of Covid-19 worldwide.
World Happiness Day was proposed to the United Nations in 2011, and was initiated in Bhutan – the home of Gross National Happiness (GNP). Internationally, attention turned to happiness as a measurement of well-being.
From there, The World Happiness Report report evolved into a landmark annual survey that measures the state of global happiness by ranking 150+/- countries according to their happiness levels. Six key variables – GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption – explain the variation of happiness across countries. Scores are based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives.
To date, the WHR reports have looked at happiness as a collective and individual quest. But the pandemic changed that as the world necessitated a different interdependence where governments, national and local, were (and still are at this writing) determining factors of life in general.
Explaining the Benchmark
The benchmark for measurement is a fictitious country called Dystopia with the world’s lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom and least social support.
Overview 2021
The WHR 2021 hones in on the effects of COVID-19 on the world and how all people have fared. Specifically the report's aim was two-fold:
Focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives
Describe and evaluate how governments worldwide have dealt with the pandemic
“2020 has been a year like no other… In particular, we try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others.”
Country Happiness Ranking (149)
Total Population 2018-2020
“A central feature of our evidence is the extent to which the quality of the social context, and especially the extent to which people trust their governments, and have trust in the benevolence of others, supports not only their ability to maintain their happiness before and during the pandemic but also reduces the COVID-19 death toll by facilitating more effective strategies for limiting the spread of the pandemic while maintaining and building a sense of common purpose.”
Current data allowed for the ranking of 149 countries in 2020. The top ten positions remained the same countries as those of 2019 with minor reordering for the lower six. Finland has stayed number one in happiness for four years straight.
For the top 10 countries, evaluations average more than two times as high than those of the bottom 10 countries. The United States ranked 19th, dropping one place since 2020. Afghanistan continued to be the lowest-ranked country.
Finland
Denmark
Switzerland
Iceland
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
Luxembourg
New Zealand
Austria
Changes in Country Well-being Ranking (95)
2017-2017 and 2020
Changes in life evaluations were measured for 95 countries with the most significant data. While overall data showed insignificant changes, the negative affect, again as in 2019, showed a significant rise in emotions – with worry and sadness leading, and with anger unchanged. The positive affect also remained virtually unchanged from previous years.
The data for Table 2.2 in the report shows an expansive variety of changes from global and regional trends based on different national experiences. The image below is a snapshot.
“The pandemic’s toll on negative emotions is clear, with 42 countries showing significantly higher frequency of negative emotions, compared to 9 where they were significantly less frequent. Positive emotions lie in the middle ground, with 22 countries on the upside and 25 heading down… Given how all lives have been so importantly disrupted, it is remarkable that the averages are so stable.”
Final Thoughts
This year’s report is an eye-opening read for me. Many of the key findings have been covered extensively throughout the past year, but seeing the data and graphs, and reading the analyses in context was surprising. I expected the whole report to be negative, but I saw a lot of resiliency.
That's something to take forward.
What's your takeaway?
Map infographics: © 2021 Janet Giampietro | Photo: Pille-Riin Priske on Unsplash
