What is the World Happiness Report?
Just like it’s your parents’ responsibility to see that you are a happy person, it’s the responsibility of the government of a country to see that its people are happy.
Every year, the United Nations (UN) releases a report card on happiness called the World Happiness Report (WHR). This report ranks countries around the world based on how happy their people are. This is done so governments understand how happy or sad their people are.
Which are the happiest and saddest countries in the world?
The top five happiest countries in the world are (1) Finland; (2) Denmark; (3) Iceland; (4) Switzerland; and (5) the Netherlands.
The top five saddest countries in the world are (1) Afghanistan; (2) Lebanon; (3) Zimbabwe; (4) Rwanda; and (5) Botswana.
(How many of these countries have you heard of before? Can you point them out on a map?)
How happy or sad is India?
The WHR ranked India’s happiness at 136th position.
Getting the 136th rank in a list of 146 countries means that India’s happiness score is quite low.
Here are 2 reasons why Indians feel so sad:
1. No support - The report found Indians don’t feel they can depend on friends, family or the government to help them out if they are in trouble.
2. Lots of unemployment - especially since people lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
Umm... are things getting better?
You bet! Just look at how India’s rank has been improving on the WHR over the past few years. In 2019 we ranked 140, in 2020 we ranked 144 (yikes!), in 2021 we ranked 139, and in 2022 we ranked 136 (yay!).
As you can see, we’re slowly but surely getting happier year by year. Meanwhile, the best thing you can do to help things along is to do more of the things that make you happy and provide some support to your friends and family if you can.
