The people of Belgium now rank 16th on the World Happiness Report. That’s up one place from last year. For the seventh year in a row, Finland is the country with the happiest population in the world.
The World Happiness Report compared the fortunes of people in 143 nations and teaches up that people up North in Europe are the happiest. Researchers from international research firm Gallup took six factors into account: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and the absence of corruption.
Finland remains in the lead as the happiest country. What exactly makes Finns happier than the rest of the world, the researchers do not list, but the country scores well on most indicators. The survey reveals Finland also has happy immigrants.
The Top 5 also includes nationals from other Nordic countries: Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. Interestingly, Israel completes the Top 5. The survey was conducted between 2021 and 2023 before the start of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Belgians a trifle happier
Belgium rises one place in the ranking and features in 16th place. Germany falls back again, from place 16 to 24, and the United States makes a similar move, from 15 to 23. The two countries drop out of the Top 20 for the first time in more than a decade.
In Belgium, people under 30 are just slightly happier than those over 60. "But the figures are quite similar. Results for Belgium have been very stable for several years," says researcher Jan-Emmanuel De Neve. Most Belgians give at least a 7 in response to the question 'how satisfied are you with your life'."
Belgian economist and Oxford professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, who collaborated on the report explains that the survey measures a "feeling of contentment" rather than "jumping up and down, out of joy".
The unhappiest country in the world is Afghanistan, which records a score of 1.7 out of 10.