World happier than before Covid pandemic; West slightly lesser than others: Global Happiness Index

New Delhi: Despite taking more than 6 million lives, pushing tens of millions on the verge of extreme poverty, and literally causing a socio-economic disruption across the globe, the Coronavirus pandemic has failed to make a dent in human beings’ ability to stay generous and happy, a global report on world Happiness revealed on Monday.

The researchers interviewed more than 100,000 people in 137 countries to discover that there were noticeably greater levels of goodness than there had been before the pandemic in every area of the world. And when asked to rate their lives on a measure of one to 10, people’s responses were, on average, just as positive for the 2020–22 Covid years as they were for the 2017–19 years.

The 10th World Happiness Report found that overall, “the undoubted pains were offset by increases in the extent to which respondents had been able to discover and share the capacity to care for each other in difficult times.”

Things were slightly worse in western nations and slightly better in the rest of the world, it said.

Despite higher death rates among the elderly, overall measures of “misery” decreased, and individuals over the age of 60 reported being happier on average than younger age groups.

John Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia and the report’s co-editor, said, “It’s extraordinary”.

“People eventually learned who their neighbours were. They took care of the senior citizens, so the isolation was less severe than you might anticipate. Positive emotions have remained twice as common as negative ones even during these challenging years, and feelings of positive social support have stayed twice as strong as feelings of loneliness,” said the report.

Activities sparked by the demands of lockdowns, such as assisting a stranger, giving to charity, and volunteering, have been shown to increase happiness and are now above pre-pandemic levels.

The research discovered that the pandemic increased the happiness effect of “having someone to rely on in times of trouble,” and since 80% of those surveyed reported having someone to count on, had a significant impact.

Global Happiness Ranking

Finland maintained its top spot in the overall happiness league chart for the sixth year in a row, while Afghanistan remained at the bottom, where it had been before the Taliban’s resurgence in 2021.

Additionally, the UK’s satisfaction rankings have declined for the fourth year in a row. The nation comes in at number 19, ahead of France but behind Germany, the US, Australia, Ireland, and all of the Nordic nations in the top 15% of the happy states, sandwiched between Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

Gallup’s polling analysed the factors that affect people’s life assessment scores.

The primary predictors of happiness were discovered to be GDP per capita, societal support, a healthy life expectancy, freedom to pursue one’s dreams, generosity, and an absence of corruption.

However, the poll samples did not include some of those who were most impacted by Covid, such as those who were homeless or institutionalised.

The research was put together by economists including Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Richard Layard of the London School of Economics. It is possibly the most well-known recent attempt to measure subjective wellbeing in an effort to influence lawmakers to give happiness more weight.

The Office for National Statistics in the UK has been tracking contentment for more than ten years.

Global comparisons may be challenging because respondents may answer the queries with different ideas in mind than the researchers, according to critics.

For instance, some Finns have proposed that “contentment” instead of “happiness” might be a better word to describe their current mood.

Global West and South coutries

The report also showed a clear contrast between the “West” and the “Global South” in the report.

As per the report, Europe is home to 15 of the top 20 happy nations. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel also join them, despite the fact that the study was done prior to the most recent outbreaks of violence in the Middle Eastern nation.

Africa was home to 13 of the 20 unhappiest nations, along with Bangladesh, India, and Jordan.

Recent positive and negative emotions are questioned in the research. Around the world, positive feelings like laughter, enjoyment, and interest were more prevalent during the pandemic than negative ones like concern, sadness, and anger.

The research also revealed that the Netherlands was the nation where happiness was most evenly distributed and where the difference between those who were happy and those who weren’t was the smallest.

The happiness gap was usually found to be smaller in places where people lived, with the exception of Afghanistan, where levels of misery were so pervasive despite an almost identical happiness gap to the Netherlands.

Liberia, the Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique are all African nations where there are the biggest gaps in satisfaction.

In the report, Sachs stated that the ultimate goal of politics and ethics should be human welfare.
“The happiness movement demonstrates that wellbeing is not a soft and nebulous concept but rather concentrates on life’s essential elements: financial circumstances, mental and physical prosperity, individual virtues, and good citizenship,” states the report.

War-torn countries

In contrast to Russia, where it significantly declined, documented generosity in Ukraine increased to record highs with high scores for donations and the helping of strangers.

However, based on a three-year average, it was insufficient to stop a general decline in happiness in the invaded nation, which fell to 92nd position and was in the bottom half of the league table.

In contrast, “worry” decreased considerably in Ukraine while remaining stable in Russia, which overall ranked in the 70th percentile for happiness.

According to the report, “life evaluations in September 2022 stayed higher than in the wake of the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russians, backed by a much stronger sense of shared purpose, generosity, and confidence in their leadership.”

This was true despite the severity of the suffering and damage in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the general wellbeing of Ukrainians declined from 5.1 out of 10 in 2021 to 5.1 out of 10 in 2022.

Comparatively, the Russians’ general wellbeing points increased to 5.7. The Britain received a 6.8 while Finland received a 7.8.

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