https://edition.cnn.com/travel/worlds-happiest-countries-202...
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Israel
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Luxembourg
9. Switzerland
10. Australia
11. New Zealand
12. Costa Rica
13. Kuwait
14. Austria
15. Canada
16. Belgium
17. Ireland
18. Czechia
19. Lithuania
20. United Kingdom
* One of the highest suicide rates in Europe
* One of the highest homocide rates in Europe
* High rate of drug related mortality
* Poorly performing economy since the financial crisis 2008 / Nokia mobile phones fell in 2011
* Rapidly growing public and private debt
* A far right government with an xenophobic, anti-EU, "we need a strong leader" party being the second strongest
* Increasing strikes (well that might be too new to be covered by the research)
How does that lead to rank 1?
Simple answer from the mouth of a Finnish teenager: "All that are not happy have committed suicide."
Edit: I don't question that Finland ranks higher than the US. But the number 1 is very questionable.
Happiness, when measured at population level, doesn't mean intense emotions. It doesn't mean that everyone is visibly happy. It means that people are generally content with their lives, because nothing is particularly wrong for most people.
If you look at the country rankings, all the usual suspects rank high: the Nordic countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Whenever you rank countries by some measure of success or quality of life, you expect to see those countries near the top. All of them are wealthy and not too large, and they all have a culture where the people in charge generally try to make things right. It doesn't always look like that from the inside, but when you compare them to the rest of the world, it's pretty clear why they are so successful. Especially if you try to measure success by the quality of life experienced by the middle 80% of the population.
Other things on the list I can understand but not this one. The government is not "far right" and not "xenophobic" (although one of the party in the government might be labeled as such, persus). Compared to US for example I think the current government is much more on the left than either republicans or democrats. The leading party in finland (part of the government) is actively pushing for more work-based migration.
Where did you get the "we need a strong leader" rethoric that you mention? I have never seen that from Persus (the party you are refering to)
Of course left - right is only one dimension in politics. Nowadays typically another dimension is conservative - liberal, but even 2 dimensions cannot measure everything. So the government could probably be described as the most economic right and the least liberal, I simplified that a bit to far right.
That party has no such strong leader agenda, but to my understanding polls show a clear correlation between "everything was better under Kekkonen" (a president for over 25 years with a somewhat authoritarian leader style) and voting for the "True Finns" / "Finns Party" today.
Either way this government is too young to have a major impact on the study in TFA. My point was more like the other way round: Happy people would not vote for the party of the dissatisfied, simple answers, everything was better before EU/the foreigners came. For those following German politics, "Wutbürger" (angry citizens) would typically not be happy people, would they?
Which is probably much more on the left than any US government for example and quite far from the "far right" you were stating in previous post.
> "taking from the poor, giving to the rich" and a xenophobic agenda
Quite strong words. This sounds very much like your personal opinion instead of a fact.
> to my understanding polls show a clear correlation between "everything was better under Kekkonen" (a president for over 25 years with a somewhat authoritarian leader style) and voting for the "True Finns" / "Finns Party" today
Sources please for the "clear correlation". This also sounds very much like your personal opinion.
> My point was more like the other way round: Happy people would not vote for the party of the dissatisfied, simple answers, everything was better before EU/the foreigners came. For those following German politics, "Wutbürger" (angry citizens) would typically not be happy people, would they?
Voting parties more on the right does not mean that "people are not happy", it mostly means that people understand economic principles.
The previous leftist government caused the Finland's debt level to raise to very dangerous levels while the economy shrinked at the same time and were only going to add more debt without cutting any expenses or encouraging new business. I personally think that business-positive government is a very good thing and apparently so do most of the happy finnish voters.
Yes, strong words. In my opinion it's the worst government as long as I have followed Finnish politics. A vice prime minister who wants to shoot foreigners, that would not be acceptable in many Western democracies. (Yes, the statement is old and she might have written it only to get political supporters. But for me neither of them is an excuse.)
Just read any newspaper:
* Next month social benefits will be cut and more cuts are in preparation
* Unemployed foreigners will lose their permits and have to leave their country after a short time. Not yet decided, but the original plan was 3 months.
* The possibility for seeking political asylum can be suspended for 30 days (draft by the ministry)
That's what I call taking from the poor and the weak.
Despite that everybody agrees that the public debt is growing too fast, the government insists on lowering taxes (not drastically, but still) instead of raising them as the situation would require.
That's what I call giving to the rich.
The new government is growing the debt even further already according to current budget. And typically the budget is too optimistic, in reality it might come worse. I would not call that understanding economic principles, it's pure ideology that taxes must not be raised and benefits of the rich must not be touched.
> apparently so do most of the happy finnish voters.
The results were pretty unclear. Several government coalitions would have been possible. The winner did not want to compromise, but move to the right as far as they could.
If there were a election today, the Finns Party would lose quite a bit. Many of their voters are affected by the cuts and not happy.
So claiming that this government has a strong backing is a bit of an exaggeration. It does not help that they repeat it. They won the last election, but that's it.
Because none of the items you mentioned affect happiness or the perceived life of the people in Finland. The vast majority won't and don't know people who commit suicide, murder or die from drugs. People may grumble about bus strikes but are mostly are happy with and trust public services, transport, police, press and government. And feel safe they won't be destitute even if lose their job.
BTW Finland doesn't have a far right government - there's a right wing party (which has shelved its anti-eu policies) as part of the government coalition. The proportional representation perhaps makes people feel less disenfranchised and 'happier'.
That part I seriously doubt. I personally know of 2 suicides in the last 20 years. Not people that were close in any way, but people I had met. (Like the brother of the best friend of my wife or a classmate of my daughter.) One more accident where suicide is suspected to be the real reason by many. There are probably not many Finns with no relative who died from the consequences of alcoholism.
I would claim everybody should know someone suffering/having suffered from depression or other mental health problems.
And I have witnessed one suicide, which was not a pleasant view (that might be more of bad luck, probably fewer people have)
Suicide is 1 per 7500 people - so I still think most people won't really know someone, but might know of, or have met.
But yes, if suicide included people who "drank themselves to death" or who had fatal accidents when drunk, or killed someone while drunk, close to everyone (including me) would know someone
Makes this whole Ranking suspicious
(This relates to both Jewish and Muslim citizens of Israel.)
Your (or mine, or anyone's) view of their conditions don't have much influence on their everyday feelings.
> Makes this whole Ranking suspicious
There's nothing too suspicious about asking many people in different countries are they feeling happy on this particular day. If anything, what's looking suspicious is the premise that high levels of GDP (for whatever that means) would result in more happiness of the people.
Disclaimer: I'm an Israeli expat.
Why is Bhutan not on this list? Too small?
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-of-the-young...
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/latest-updates/uk-i...
It's endearing.
Slice of history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXfq1zCVhA0
Large differences between age groups as well, as the report states:
> Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain are countries where the old are now significantly happier than the young, while Portugal and Greece show the reverse pattern.
I guess some people around there die happy, believing it is for a good cause, so there's no contradiction, at least not from their point of view.
I'd still rather take Norway or New Zealand.
Guess if that's what the evidence says...
I am very surprised though that people in what is nearly a perpetual war, being attacked or hated from all sides, are both subjectively happier and objectively longer living than most of the rest of the planet.
Either I have really no clue what happiness is, or we are wrong about the idea that war is bad, at least not in all cases.
There's correlation between being in relationship and reporting happiness. This can be taken as a proof that being in a relationship makes people happy ("marriage brings happiness" hypothesis). An alternative explanation does a U-turn on this one: people who are "naturally happy" are always smiling, take life easy, and basically make for a better partner. They are easier to marry, and easier to stay with once married. This is "happiness brings marriage" hypothesis. The third explanation would be that these are occurring simultaneously but are not in any causal relationship whatsoever.
Moreover, even people in Finland are more happy on average, this doesn't promise that you would be happier if you move to Finland. Rather, being in a new country with no knowledge of the language and no friends might make you less happy than you are now.
In other words, you shouldn't take this study in any particular direction of "if you want to be happy you should marry someone", nor "you should move to Finland", nor "you should join a religion."
So I can remain on my original strategy, despite all the precise corrections I received to my ill-conceived notions? Nice.
To put that into perspective, imagine a Christian country with 40% of non-believers and 60% of monks (with the monks consistently reporting high levels of happiness). That would strongly remind of Israel. (To be clear, both Jewish and Muslim population is included in the latter.)
Majority is secular. Of the religious people the majority are relatively tame. There are some extremist religious people e.g. Hasidim but they are a cult of their own (think Amish). They probably wouldn't even take part in a survey.
The reason for happiness is multi-fold:
* It's a 3 year average. Notice that Israel is actually slipping due to last year.
* Economy was generally good until last October
* Army service tends to unify the community
* It's a small country which tends to bring people together through collective fate
I'm not saying that the religious people aren't happier than the median. But I am saying that based on statistics Israel is relatively secular. More so than most western countries.
Regardless, this is a self reporting study which is the only way to report happiness. Over the past 3 years prior to October Israel had years of peace which are far more appreciated in a country that has known quite a lot of conflict. I think westerners don't appreciate this as much as we do.
As the people return from the army feeling they have done something significant to protect their country, and with the public discourse drifting away from the regular "Bibi vs. not Bibi" agenda, I fully expect Israel to report even higher levels of happiness next year.
80% are pretty much interested in Bibi taking a hike by now. The only people who still want him have a deep agenda and never liked him to begin with. He's outlived his usefulness even for them.
As a non religious person I love Yom Kippur. It's super fun. We all go out with bikes and have a blast. We respect the religious people and don't drive (also it's dangerous with all the kids out on bikes). It doesn't mean we're religious.
I accept that most feel they have a Jewish identity. But that isn't religion, it's tradition.
They did actually drop a pretty significant 0.9 points in the latest poll, but since the list is using three year averages that only caused a 0.3 drop for 2023.