The UN released its World Happiness Report for 2023, in which Israel rose nine places coming it the fourth happiest nation in the world. This may come as a surprise to many people who have been following the news coming out of Israel recently, with all of the political turmoil and protests against the government’s planned judicial reforms. But Israel would not be Israel without political arguments and, what is more, the report was compiled before the recent dispute began.
The UN based its results for the World Happiness Report on the Gallup World Poll, which it said remains the principal source of data in the report. The Gallup World Poll tracks the most important issues worldwide, such as food access, employment, leadership performance, and well-being. Since creating the World Poll in 2005, Gallup has conducted studies in more than 160 countries that include 99% of the world’s adult population.
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The Gallup poll asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and the worst possible as a 0. Each respondent provides a numerical response on this scale, referred to as the Cantril ladder. The numerical results are based on the average response respondents gave on a scale of 0 to 10.
Israel’s rating in the World Happiness Report was 7.473, which means that just under 75% of respondents are happy living there. Finland came in at number one with a 7.804 ranking, followed by Denmark, 7.586, and Iceland 7.530.
Interestingly, all of the nations that ranked above Israel in their level of happiness are European, and two of them are classified as Scandinavian. In Fact, two other Scandinavian nations made the top ten this year (meaning all four made it) and only one other non-European nation, New Zealand, made the top of the list.
Canada came in at number 13 and the United States at number 15.
Costa Rica, at number 23, is the highest on the list of any country not considered to be a Western nation.
The next two Asian nations after Israel are both oil rich countries, the United Arab Emirates, 26, and Saudi Arabia, 30.
The World Happiness Report, says the UN, reflects a worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.
Income, health, having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity, and the absence of corruption all play strong roles in supporting life evaluations and happiness.
