Why The Netherlands dominates the World Happiness Report rankings
This year’s World Happiness Report again ranks The Netherlands among the top ten happiest of 155 countries surveyed.
The U.S., on the other hand, ranked 18th this year, a four-spot drop from last year’s report.
The Netherlands scores well when it comes to social trust and support. Due to the situation surrounding the corona virus, this social support will become ‘more important than ever’ in the near future, according to the research report.
Besides being one of the happiest, the researchers say the Netherlands is one of the few countries on the list where people living in cities are less happy than people living in rural areas
The World Happiness Report 2020, which ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be, according to their evaluations of their own lives, was launched today to coincide with World Happiness Day.
The Top 20 happiest countries include:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Switzerland
- Iceland
- Norway
- The Netherlands
- Sweden
- New Zealand
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Canada
- Australia
- UK
- Israel
- Costa Rica
- Ireland
- Germany
- US
- Czech Republic
- Belgium
Four of the six factors used by the report to explain a country’s happiness are different aspects of the social environment. They include having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity, and trust. The report looks at how inequality plays in a person’s happiness and how good social environments can help to mitigate the effects of inequality.
