Europeans are still the happiest countries in the world, even in times of COVID

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The coronavirus did little to alter the ranking of the world’s happiest countries, with Finland at the top for the fourth consecutive year, a U.N.-sponsored annual report said Friday, March 19th.

World Happiness Report researchers used Gallup poll data asking people in 149 countries to rate their own happiness, also taking into account measures such as GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption in each nation.

Once again, the top spots were dominated by European countries: the aforementioned Finland in first place, Denmark second and Switzerland third. They are followed by Iceland and the Netherlands. New Zealand, which dropped one place to ninth, was again the only non-European nation in the top ten.

Other climbers were Germany, which rose from 17th to 13th, and France, which reached 21st. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, fell from 13th to 17th place, while the United States dropped one place to 19th.

Costa Rica is the first Latin American country on this list, in 16th place, followed by Uruguay (31st), Brazil (35th), Mexico (36th), Panama (41st) and Chile (43rd). Argentina is ranked 57th.

African nations Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe ranked at the bottom of the table, but ahead of Afghanistan, which was ranked as the world’s unhappiest country this year.

The authors also compared this year’s data with previous years’ averages to measure the impact of the pandemic and found “a significantly higher frequency of negative emotions” in just over a third of the countries.

But positive emotions increased in 22 countries, and “surprisingly there was, on average, no decline in well-being when measured by people’s own assessment of their lives,” John Helliwell, one of the report’s authors, said in a statement.

“One possible explanation is that people see COVID-19 as a common external threat that affects everyone and that this has engendered a greater sense of solidarity and togetherness,” he noted.

Meanwhile, author Jeffrey Sachs warned that “we urgently need to learn from COVID-19,” adding, “We must aim for well-being rather than mere wealth.”

Finland, which throughout the health crisis has reported some of the lowest incidences of the coronavirus in Europe, “ranked very high in the mutual trust measures that have helped protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemic,” the authors said.

Despite long winters and a reputation for its inhabitants for being unspoken and very lonely, Finland has a high standard of living, well-functioning public services, many forests and lakes, and very positive indices of solidarity and the fight against poverty and inequality.