• Sri Lanka advances to a 112 ranking in the World Happiness Report 2023

The 11th edition of the World Happiness Report was released on 20 March, and indicates that Sri Lankans are slightly happier during the years covered by the 2023 report than they were in the previous edition. The country has gone from a ranking of 127 in 2022 (which is the average of the years 2019-2021) to 112 this year, which looks at the period 2020-2022.

However, it must be noted that the Sri Lankan ranking does not take into account 2022, as a survey was not carried out during one of the most difficult years in the country’s recent history. In 2022, the population was faced with numerous challenges caused by the economic crisis, ranging from a loss of income and inflation to fuel and power shortages. One could thus argue that the 2023 World Happiness Report ranking does not paint an entirely accurate image of Sri Lanka.

While keeping this in mind, the report still offers a wealth of information on the state of mind and wellbeing of people across the globe. In the 2023 report, Sri Lanka sits snugly between Kenya and Uganda, ranking below its South Asian counterparts Nepal (78) and Pakistan (108), but above Bangladesh (118), India (126), and Afghanistan (137).

The happiest countries in the world, according to the 2023 World Happiness Report, are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand.

The unhappiest among the 137 countries surveyed are Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Congo, Botswana, Malawi, Comoros, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Happiness versus equality

The report also looked at the happiness gap between the top and bottom halves of each country’s population from 2020-2022. In Sri Lanka, the gap was 3.553, giving it an estimated ranking of 63. The lowest gap was in Afghanistan (1.672), followed by Netherlands (1.787) and Finland (1.917). The gap was largest in Liberia (6.859), with Congo (6.063) and Mozambique (5.984) claiming the spots before it.

According to the report, there is a positive correlation in general between the life evaluation and equality rankings, but there remain substantial differences too, since inequality is only one among many factors influencing how people evaluate their lives as a whole.

When the rankings were compared, 18 countries had an equality ranking 35 or more ranks below their happiness ranking, while another 18 countries had an equality ranking 35 or more ranks above their happiness ranking.

The latter group includes Afghanistan and Lebanon, the least happy countries where most people across the two halves of the population are unhappy. This group also includes four countries in Southeast Asia, three current or former members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, six African countries, of which three are in North Africa, plus Hong Kong, Iran, and Sri Lanka.

The 2023 report

The World Happiness Report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by the Gallup World Poll data. In its executive summary, the authors of the 2023 report state that it has been over ten years since the World Happiness Report was first published, and that it is also exactly ten years since the United Nations General Assembly declared 20 March as International Day of Happiness.

The report considered six factors when measuring happiness. The authors state that income, health, having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity, and the absence of corruption play strong roles in supporting life evaluations.

One of the six factors is gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, which provides information about the size of the economy and how it is performing. Another factor is social support.

Under health and life expectancy, the authors look at physical and mental health, highlighting that the latter is a key component of subjective well-being and is also a risk factor for future physical health and longevity. Mental health influences and drives a number of individual choices, behaviours, and outcomes, the report states.

The fourth factor considered is the freedom to make life choices, and the fifth is generosity. The report states it is “a clear marker for a sense of positive community engagement and a central way that humans connect with each other. Research shows that in all cultures, starting in early childhood, people are drawn to behaviours which benefit other people.”

The report also looks at the perception of corruption and if people trust their governments and have trust in the benevolence of others. The authors state that the countries that score the lowest for these six variables characterise Dystopia, which is an imaginary country that has the world’s least-happy people.

What comes next?

While any country would want to lean more toward Utopia than Dystopia, it is worth considering what the information shared through the World Happiness Report 2023 enables us to do. The authors present a happiness agenda, looking at the next decade, stating that when assessing a society, situation, or policy, we should look not only at the average happiness it brings, including for future generations, but also look especially at the scale of misery (i.e., low life satisfaction) that results.

“To prevent misery, governments and international organisations should establish rights such as those in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” the report recommends, adding that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should also be broadened to consider wellbeing and environmental policy dimensions jointly to ensure the happiness of future generations.

The authors state that once happiness is accepted as the goal of the government, there will be other profound effects on institutional practices, with health, especially mental health, assuming even more priority, along with the quality of work, family life, and community.