Finland Named World’s Happiest Country for 7th Year in a Row, According to Study
The US, meanwhile, dropped down to 20th place.
The annual World Happiness Report is out: Finland is the happiest country in the world. The news wasn’t exactly surprising, considering Finland has held the spot for the past six years.
Denmark came in second place, followed by Iceland. Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands and Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia round out the top ten happiest countries.
For the most part, the top ten happiest countries usually stay the same but in this year, the United States fell out of the top 20 for the first time. Previously at 15th, it drastically dropped down to the 23rd spot. The United Kingdom wound up in the 20th overall spot.
To calculate the World Happiness Report, researchers heavily rely on Gallup World Poll. 100,000 people in 130 countries are asked to rate the quality of their lives on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being the worst and ten representing the best possible life. The individuals are polled yearly over the course of three years.
Other data, such as GDP per capita and life expectancy, is also taken into account. Researchers additionally consider the level of individual freedom granted in each country and whether their governments are considered corrupt.
No country is perfectly happy – even in first place, Finland’s score amounted to 7.804. Denmark was close behind at 7.586.
The World Happiness Report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford and produced in partnership with Wellbeing and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
