World Happiness Report 2021

The report was collected and prepared slightly differently amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

The United Nation Sustainable Development Solutions Network has released its annual report called “World Happiness Report, 2021”. The report was collected and prepared slightly differently amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. The report measures the subjective well-being by relying on three indicators namely, Life Evaluation, Positive Emotions and Negative Emotions. The report was presented ahead of “World Happiness day” which is observed on March 20. The happiness study ranks the countries of the world on the basis of questions from the Gallup World Poll. The results are then correlated with other factors, including GDP and social security. Read on…

In order to measure the life evaluations, Gallup World Poll asked people to evaluate their current life using image of a ladder. The best possible life for them was evaluated as 10 while the worst possible life as 0. The report highlights that, “life evaluations” provide the most informative measure to conduct the international comparisons because this indicator captures the quality of life in a complete and stable way.

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Methodology: The rankings are based on polling which looks at six variables and respondents are asked to rate their own current lives on a 0-10 scale.

• Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (Purchasing Power Parity).
• Social Support.
• Healthy life expectancy at birth.
• Freedom to make life choices.
• Generosity.
• Perceptions of corruption.

Positive emotions: The positive emotions were captured in the report by asking the people whether they smiled or laughed the previous day. The positive response was coded as 1 while the negative response was coded as 0. Following this, average response was calculated for each person in the range of 0 and 1.

Negative emotions: Lastly, the negative emotions were measured by asking the respondents whether they experienced any specific negative emotions on the same day.

Key Findings

Finland was again titled as the World’s happiest country because the overall rankings remained similar to the index of 2020. The other countries that performed well on the rankings are Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and Netherlands. United States was ranked at 19th position. Afghanistan was titled as the ‘Least Happy’ country.

India’s ranking

India has been ranked 139 out of 149 countries in the list of UN World Happiness Report 2021. It said that India is on the 139th spot on the list. In 2019, India was ranked 140th. Ten countries who have been ranked behind India in the year 2021 are Burundi, Yemen, Tanzania, Haiti, Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

People in war-torn Afghanistan are the most unhappy with their lives, followed by Zimbabwe (148), Rwanda (147), Botswana (146) and Lesotho (145).

Top Performers

• Finland ranked as the happiest country for the fourth consecutive year.
• Followed by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Norway.

Worst Performers

• Afghanistan (149) is the most unhappy country.
• Followed by Zimbabwe (148), Rwanda (147), Botswana (146) and Lesotho (145).

India’s neighbours

• Pakistan-105.
• Bangladesh-101.
• China-84.

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