Surely you’ve sometimes thought of moving to another country and starting a new life, in search of happiness. However, among your possible choices, you may never have included Finland, right? A sad mistake, because this Nordic country is, nowadays, the happiest place in the world, according to the United Nations’ World Happiness Report. The document elaborated by the UN elected this Northern European country not only through the votes of its own citizens, but also, for the first time in the history of this ranking, through the opinion of immigrants living in the countries analyzed.
To have an idea of the importance of the World Happiness Report – which analyzed data from 2015 to 2017 – the American economist and co-author of the study, Jeffrey Sachs, says that governments are increasingly using the indicators of happiness in their policies and decision making.
What does Finland have?
Finland wasn’t elected because of the surreal beauty of its Northern Lights and midnight sun. The “Land of Santa Claus”, with its historical cities, leads the list of the happiest countries in the world due to more serious and objective indicators: the country’s life expectancy, its per capita income and level of social equality, the feeling of freedom to make decisions, the perception of the level of corruption, and its social welfare policies.
Nordic supremacy in quality of life
In the election’s ranking, the Finns surpassed the Norwegians (the leaders of the previous ranking, in 2015), followed by Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia in the TOP 10. The explanation for the order of the countries comes from Melk Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute: The Nordic countries are really good at creating the best conditions for people’s lives.
And what about Brazil? See the outstanding countries in the South American ranking
The bad news for Brazilians is that the country has lowered its position in relation to the UN’s 2015 report. Brazil is now in 28th place, down from 22nd, higher than Argentina (29th) and lower than Chile (26th). As for Venezuela, it has fallen from 82nd place to 102nd , among 156 countries.
