The Global Happiness Report ranked New Zealand as the tenth happiest nation in the world in 2023. However, this good news is not what it seems, as Aotearoa and other places report a general fall in happiness.
New Zealand is the 10th happiest country
Using “life assessments” from the Gallup World Poll, the World Happiness Report produces and ranks a general happiness score for each nation every year. Since 2012, scores derived from six distinct indices have been used to compare the well-being of nations, ranking them on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest.
The score takes into account corruption, social assistance, life expectancy, freedom of movement, wealth (measured as GDP per capita), and health. The league table seems to have not changed much this year. Finland, followed by Denmark and Iceland, was crowned the world’s happiest nation for the sixth consecutive year.
The national tourism organization Visit Finland has organized a four-day “Masterclass of Happy” to commemorate the occasion, inviting attendees to the Järvi-Suomi lakes to experience the Finnish way of satisfaction. Northern European nations make up the majority of the top 10 teams in the league. Israel and New Zealand are the only geographical exceptions in this trend, both ranking fourth and tenth, respectively.
Since the initial report was published 10 years ago, New Zealand has regularly been in the top ten, although its relative happiness score has dropped two spots.
Actually, Aotearoa’s happiness rating has decreased by 0.077 points to 7.123. Even Finland has seen a decline in overall happiness, from 7.821 to 7.804. Although the global life satisfaction levels are equal to pre-pandemic years, according to this year’s Happiness Report, there is a little cooling in contentment overall. According to Gallup Poll data, overall happiness has decreased by 0.08 points since records began approximately ten years ago.
Over the past ten years, happiness has decreased most in Western Europe (by -0.8) and North America (by -0.4). However, it has increased in Eastern Europe (by 0.4) and Sub-Saharan Africa (by 0.2).
Lithuania is one of the few nations that has defied the trend. The Baltic nation, which has risen 30 spots since 2017, is the only new entry in the top twenty. Afghanistan and Lebanon continue to rank last in the league for happiness in the meanwhile.
“Happiness gap”
Although Finland has once again been named the world’s happiest nation, saunas and birch forests may not be the only factors contributing to fulfillment.
The happiness rating shows a variety of trends and changes, some of which scarcely affect the rankings. For instance, Ukraine’s satisfaction score decreased less last year amid its conflict with Russia than it did in 2014 after Crimea was annexed.
According to the World Happiness Report, the “happiness gap” is one of the most important variables in determining overall happiness. According to the distribution of happiness, nations with widening gaps between their citizens’ levels of happiness are more likely to perform poorly in comparison to those with low levels of inequality, which are seen among the top-performing “happiest countries.”
People are happier in nations with fewer happiness gaps and inequality, yet this equality is not entirely reliant on wealth or GDP. It appears that comparison truly robs us of joy.
Top 10 Happiest Countries in the World
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Israel
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- New Zealand
