Switzerland falls behind in the world happiness ranking
Since the World Happiness Report was first published in 2012, Switzerland has always held top positions. It took first place in the 2015 report.
The report takes a serious look at some difficult-to-quantify but important measures of human well-being. It aims to push the measurement of well-being beyond metrics like wealth, the measure traditionally used.
Data and surveys conducted in each country produce results on wealth, healthy life expectancy, social support, trust, freedom to make life choices, generosity and dystopia. Dystopia is an unquantifiable seventh element also used to explain cultural differences.
Switzerland slipped to fourth place this year behind Iceland (3rd), Denmark (2nd) and Finland (1st). Iceland and Switzerland swapped places. The differences between the nations in the top 5 places are small. 309 points separate Finland (7,821) and Switzerland (7,512). This corresponds to a difference of 4%.
The biggest difference between leaders Finland and Switzerland are unexplained factors (dystopia). Switzerland also lags slightly behind Finland in terms of social support, free choice of life and perceived corruption, but ahead in GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy and generosity.
Switzerland’s decline in the ranking since 2015 is due to a combination of its own setbacks and improvements in the ratings of Finland (7,406 -> 7,821 +5.6%) and Denmark (7,527 -> 7,636 +1.4%). Both Iceland (7,561 -> 7,557 -0.0%) and Switzerland fell, but Switzerland fell more (7,587 -> 7,512 -1.0%). However, the drop in Switzerland’s score was less than 1.0%.
The report says life assessments have been strikingly resilient in the face of Covid-19. The pandemic led to poorer health and unemployment, and highlighted existing disparities between men and women and those on low and high incomes. At the same time, this led to higher levels of donations, volunteering and other pro-social behavior. Global charity increased 25% in 2021 compared to its pre-pandemic levels, led by helping strangers but also with strong growth in donations and volunteerism. Small angry minorities aside, the pandemic appears to have spawned a global pandemic of goodwill.
More on this:
World Happiness Report 2022 (in English)
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