Current:Home > ScamsFinland remains world's happiest country on International Day of Happiness-VaTradeCoin
Finland remains world's happiest country on International Day of Happiness
lotradecoin affiliate program details View Date:2024-12-25 23:15:36
United Nations – A group of experts found that Finland remains the happiest country in the world, according to a report released Monday in conjunction with the U.N.'s International Day of Happiness.
The World Happiness Report ranked the Nordic state first for the sixth consecutive year.
According to the report, which used data from Gallup, the top 10 happiest countries are: Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand.
The U.S. was ranked 15th on the list.
The report uses several factors to evaluate each country, including physical and mental health, lack of corruption and effective government, among others.
"The ultimate goal of politics and ethics should be human well-being," said one of the report's authors, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
"The happiness movement shows that well-being is not a 'soft' and 'vague' idea but rather focuses on areas of life of critical importance: material conditions, mental and physical wealth, personal virtues, and good citizenship," Sachs said. "We need to turn this wisdom into practical results to achieve more peace, prosperity, trust, civility – and yes, happiness – in our societies."
Another author of the report, professor John Helliwell of the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, said that the average level of happiness around the world has been remarkably stable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Even during these difficult years, positive emotions have remained twice as prevalent as negative ones, and feelings of positive social support twice as strong as those of loneliness," Helliwell said.
Russia's war in Ukraine has taken a toll on the eastern European nation. However, while the country's well-being has fallen amid the devastation, the report found that Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 affected it more.
"This is thanks in part to the extraordinary rise in fellow feeling across Ukraine as picked up in data on helping strangers and donations – the Russian invasion has forged Ukraine into a nation," said co-author Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.
The good news? There was a globe-spanning surge of benevolence. The report found it's about 25% more common than before the pandemic.
- In:
- Finland
- United Nations
Pamela Falk is the CBS News correspondent covering the United Nations, and an international lawyer.
TwitterveryGood! (52722)
Related
- Kylie Kelce's podcast 'Not Gonna Lie' tops Apple, Spotify less than a week after release
- Eric Nam’s global pop defies expectations. On his latest album, ‘House on a Hill,’ he relishes in it
- Summer of Record Heat Deals Costly Damage to Texas Water Systems
- Franne Lee, who designed costumes for 'SNL' and 'Sweeney Todd,' dies at 81
- China's new tactic against Taiwan: drills 'that dare not speak their name'
- Carmakers fail privacy test, give owners little or no control on personal data they collect
- U.S. Air Force conducts test launch of unarmed Minuteman III ICBM from California
- When do new 'Simpsons' episodes come out? Season 35 release date, cast, how to watch
- Stock market today: Asian shares advance, tracking rally on Wall Street
- Vegas man tied to extremist group gets life sentence for terrorism plot targeting 2020 protests
Ranking
- Secretary of State Blinken is returning to the Mideast in his latest diplomatic foray
- 29-year-old solo climber who went missing in Rocky Mountains found dead
- South African conservation NGO to release 2,000 rhinos into the wild
- Coco Gauff takes the reins of her tennis career, but her parents remain biggest supporters
- Beyoncé's BeyGood charity donates $100K to Houston law center amid Jay
- A football coach who got job back after Supreme Court ruled he could pray on the field has resigned
- 2 tourists die in same waters off Outer Banks within 24 hours
- The Biden administration proposes new federal standards for nursing home care
Recommendation
-
Atmospheric river and potential bomb cyclone bring chaotic winter weather to East Coast
-
Summer of Record Heat Deals Costly Damage to Texas Water Systems
-
Jennifer Love Hewitt Addresses Comments She Looks Different After Debuting Drastic Hair Change
-
Great Wall of China damaged by workers allegedly looking for shortcut for their excavator
-
Sabrina Carpenter reveals her own hits made it on her personal Spotify Wrapped list
-
Carnival cruise passenger vanishes after ship docks in Florida
-
Meet Apollo, the humanoid robot that could be your next coworker
-
A Trump backer has a narrow lead in Utah’s congressional primary, buoyed by strong rural support