What can we Learn From the 2021 World Happiness Report?
For the 9th year, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published The World Happiness Report, giving us insight into what makes people happy around the world. This year’s report focuses on the effects of COVID-19 on happiness and how countries have differed in their success in reducing the deaths and maintaining connected and healthy societies.
Researchers say their aim this year was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world have dealt with the pandemic. In particular, they try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others.
The report also states that for 2020 the same six factors continue to support well-being (income, health, someone to count on, freedom, generosity, and trust) and these six factors continue to do so in almost exactly the same way as in previous years.
Despite a tumultuous year, there has been little change in the top 10 happiest countries. Here are the top 10 countries who fared the best in 2020:
- Finland
- Iceland
- Denmark
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Germany
- Norway
- New Zealand
- Austria
The rankings use data that come from the Gallup World Poll surveys from 2018 to 2020, and are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll, called the Cantril ladder. This asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.
In this article, we explore the key lessons from the 2021 World Happiness Report. Read on!
Lessons From the 2021 World Happiness Report
1. Humans are Really Quite Resilient
Despite a global pandemic, surprisingly our happiness levels have remained pretty consistent in 2020.
“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives,” said co-author John Helliwell. “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.”
Instead, the report shows that aside from an initial dip in happiness levels early in 2020 when most countries went into lockdown, on average people were just as happy and optimistic as in previous years. As a whole across the world, humans have shown some pretty incredible resilience.
However, country to country, there were definite variances, with stability and regional responses to COVID leading to different national experiences. Some factors that accounted for a variation between countries included: the age of the population; whether the country was an island; and proximity to other highly infected countries. Also, cultural differences played a key role as well including confidence in public institutions; knowledge from previous epidemics; income inequality; and whether the head of government was a woman.
In short, a country’s perceived poor management of COVID and higher than average death rates negatively impacted their happiness levels. This may explain why the United States, the U.K. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico all became less happy in 2020, and why China moved to 84th place from 94th last year.
“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 co-author Shun Wang.
When it comes down to it, high levels of trust has been a common factor in countries happiness levels during the pandemic.
2. Inequality continues to impact our happiness
We’ve seen in previous research that humans have a habit of comparing themselves to others – and when we come up short, our happiness levels drop. This might explain in part why countries with highest number of COVID death and highest death rates are less happy than those with lower death rates as people criticize their governments and lament their situation.
As noted in the report, “it is to be expected that further evidence from 2021 will support the conclusions reached here, that driving community transmission to zero and keeping it there has been better for all the pillars supporting happy lives: good health, good jobs, and a society where people can connect easily with each other in mutual trust and support.”
Aside from inequality between countries, the report also notes inequality within countries as a factor in happiness levels – also drawing a line between intra-country inequality and trust.
The report found: “We do not have a full global sample measure for social trust, so we use income inequality as a strong proxy variable because social trust is generally lower in countries where income inequality is higher. We have previously found that inequality of subjective well-being is an even stronger predictor of social trust.”
Additionally, the report found that there is some early evidence of empirical linkages between income inequality and COVID-19 death rates, supported by pre-COVID evidence of links between income inequality and health. This explains the higher death rates in the U.S. and Mexico compared to Denmark and Sweden, for instance.
Unfortunately, two demographics have fared disproportionately worse than others during the pandemic, with women and youth more likely to lose their jobs due higher representation is hard hit sectors like tourism and hospitality. Also, women were more likely to have to forgo work to look after kids during lockdowns.
3. Finland does it again
Yet again, the 2021 World Happiness Report found that Finland remains on top of the world for the fourth year in a row, which comes as no surprise. It continues have high levels of mutual trust which has helped to protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.
“We find year after year that life satisfaction is reported to be happiest in the social democracies of northern Europe. People feel secure in those countries, so trust is high. The government is seen to be credible and honest, and trust in each other is high,” said co-author and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs.
4. We’re Social Beings
Lastly, as many positive psychologists have known for a while, being around people and having strong social connections is critical to our happiness. This was particularly obvious in 2020, as lockdowns impacted our ability to see people as often or at all.
But in a twist that was a little counterintuitive, the 2021 World Happiness Report found that people who were more social and had more friends pre-COVID, were more likely to suffer during lockdowns. This is probably due to the fact that the most social people suffered the greatest impact and change in lifestyle when they couldn’t see other people. This change in social activity disproportionately impacted women and youth, who tend to have more relationships and social activities.
In fact, a study of by University of Essex researchers Ben Etheridge and Lisa Spantig showed that women with at least four close friends slumped more than anyone during the spring 2020 lockdown.
The report notes that as you might expect with lockdowns and physical distancing, the pandemic had a significant effect on workforce well-being. Unemployment during the pandemic was associated with a 12 per cent drop in life satisfaction.
“Strikingly, we find that among people who stopped work due to furlough or redundancy, the impact on life satisfaction was 40 per cent more severe for individuals that felt lonely to begin with,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve. “Our report also points towards a ‘hybrid’ future of work, that strikes a balance between office life and working from home to maintain social connections while ensuring flexibility for workers, both of which turn out to be key drivers of workplace well-being.”