Finland has, for the fourth straight year, been ranked the happiest country in the world, according to a United Nations report, and this despite the mournful COVID-19 pandemic.
What's not to be happy about in a country with high incomes, marvelous healthcare for all, and a top-ranked and mostly free education system. And Finland is, of course, home to that universal icon of happiness, Santa Claus.
China was ranked 19th on the list compared to 94th in 2019.
The World Happiness Report 2021 shows Finns as the world's happiest people for 2020, which is more notorious as the year the coronavirus engulfed the planet. Using data based on the Gallup World Poll, the report shows the Nordic countries Iceland and Denmark in second and third place.
Switzerland, which some surveys rank as the best country in the world to live in, came in fourth while The Netherlands rounds out the top five happiest countries.
The sixth to 20th places were taken by Sweden, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Austria, Israel, Australia, Ireland, the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the United Kingdom, China and France.
With the exception of China, Australia, New Zealand and Israel, the world's happiest countries are overwhelmingly found in Europe and North America. And the world's happiest countries are rich.
China's leap into 19th place in 2020 was remarkable considering it was ranked 94th in 2019. Gallup researchers, however, weren't surprised by China's jump in happiness.
"The East Asian experience shows that stringent government policies not only control Covid-19 effectively, but also buffer the negative impact of daily infections on people's happiness," said Shun Wang of the Korea Development Institute.
Launched in 2012, the World Happiness Report is an annual survey conducted by the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It ranks global happiness in countries around the world.
Due to social distancing restrictions, researchers for the 2020 report focused on the relationship between well-being and COVID-19 in order to rank the countries.
"We need urgently to learn from COVID-19," said Jeffrey Sachs, report co-editor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
"The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to cooperate, and the difficulties of achieving cooperation in each country and globally."
John Helliwell, a University of British Columbia professor and one of the people behind the report, said he was surprised "there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people's own evaluation of their lives. One possible explanation is that people see COVID-19 as a common, outside threat affecting everybody and that this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and fellow-feeling."
On the other hand, the world's most miserable countries are Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Jordan.
