India again among the least happy nations
India ranked a lowly 136 among 146 nations in the Happiness Index 2022. This is not an exception, though. India’s ranking as per the index—published each year, along with details of the countries’ evaluation in the World Happiness Report—has always been among the worst-performing nations.
The Happiness Index has again put India among the ‘unhappiest’ of nations, with the improvement by three notches, from last year’s 139th to 136th, nothing to write home about.
The World Happiness Report, of which the World Happiness Index is the highlight, says that India is one among the countries that witnessed, over the past 10 years, a fall in life evaluations by more than a full point on the 0 to 10 scale.
Needless to say, all of its neighbours except Afghanistan are ranked higher—China (72), Nepal (84), Bangladesh (94), Pakistan (121), Sri Lanka (127), even Myanmar (126). Bhutan, for long considered one of the world’s happiest places, was not included in the ranking because of a technical reason.
However, according to the report, “[t]he Nordic Council of Ministers identifies three countries—Bhutan, United Kingdom, and New Zealand—as governments which use well-being metrics in all three roles: monitoring, prioritizing, and policy making”.
The World Happiness Report, published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, determines happiness, implying life satisfaction, by taking into account factors such as ‘dystopia’, ‘perceptions of corruption’, ‘generosity’, ‘freedom to make life choices’, ‘healthy life expectancy’, ‘social support’ and ‘GDP per capita’. Using these seven factors, an ‘average life evaluation’ score is obtained on a 0 to 10 scale.
The report, and therefore, the index, ranking uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives.
This year, which marks the 10th anniversary of the report, data from social media was also used to compare people’s emotions before and during the coronavirus pandemic. The authors observed “strong increases in anxiety and sadness” in 18 countries but a fall in feelings of anger.
The Happiness Index indicates that India’s rank has deteriorated over the years. In the 2022 World Happiness Report, India ranked 136th among 146 countries, while in 2021, it had ranked 139th among 149 countries. In 2020, India’s rank was 144th, while in 2019, India was ranked 140th. In the 2018 report, it ranked 133rd and in 2017, it ranked 122nd. India was ranked 118th and 117th out of 157 and 158 countries respectively in the 2016 and 2015 reports.
Like in several of the previous years, Finland topped the index this year too, with, according to the authors of the report, “the measures of mutual trust that helped protect lives and livelihood during the pandemic” emerging as a key reason.
According to John Hopkins University, the Nordic nation of 5.5 million people fared better than the majority of European nations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finland reported just over 70,000 cases and 805 deaths due to coronavirus.
