The World Happiness Report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by data from the Gallup World Poll and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, who provided access to the World Risk Poll. The 2021 Report includes data from the ICL-YouGov Behaviour Tracker as part of the COVID Data Hub.
The Report is supported by The Ernesto Illy Foundation, illycaffè, Davines Group, The Blue Chip Foundation, The William, Jeff, and Jennifer Gross Family Foundation, The Happier Way Foundation, Indeed, and Unilever’s largest ice cream brand, Wall’s.
The World Happiness Report was written by a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities. Any views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization, agency or program of the United Nations.
To measure life evaluations, the Gallup World Poll, which remains the principal source of data for the report, asked people to evaluate their current life using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a 0. According to the report, life evaluations provide the most informative measure for international comparisons because they capture the quality of life “in a more complete and stable way than emotional reports based on daily experiences.”
Positive emotions have been captured in the report by asking respondents whether they smiled or laughed a lot the previous day. An affirmative response is coded as a 1 while a negative response is coded as 0 and the average response is calculated for each person, with values ranging from 0 and 1. On the other hand, negative emotions are measured by asking them whether they experienced specific negative emotions a lot on the same day.
“Negative affect, for each person, is given by the average of their yes or no answers about three emotions: worry, sadness, and anger. National averages are created in the same way as for positive affect,” the report reads.
For the fourth year in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world, where as India has been ranked 139 out of 149 countries in the list.
Here’s the list of the top 20 ranked countries on the World Happiness Report 2021:
1. Finland
2. Demark
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. The Netherlands
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Luxembourg
9. New Zealand
10. Austria
11. Australia
12. Israel
13. Germany
14. Canada
15. Ireland
16. Costa Rica
17. United Kingdom
18. The Czech Republic
19. United States
20. Belgium
Check the complete list here.
