The top three countries with the happiest populations were led by women, the latest World Happiness Report has revealed.
Finland, led by Prime Mininster Sanna Marin, was crowned as the happiest population in the world.
The Scandinavian country of 5.5 million has topped the world for six years, according to the standards laid out by the report, which was released earlier this week in conjunction with International Day of Happiness — a UN initiative that commenced in July 2012 to promote the global “pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal.”
Coming in second place was Denmark, whose Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has served as leader since June 2019. Third place went to yet another Scandinavian country — Iceland, whose Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has been in the role since 2017.
Other top-ranking countries led by women include Sweden (ranked sixth) with Magdalena Andersson serving as Prime Minister from November 2021 to October 2022, New Zealand (ranked 10th) with Jacinda Ardern, who stepped down from the role earlier this year, and Lithuania (ranked 20th) with Ingrida Šimonytė, Prime Minister of Lithuania since December 2020.
That means five out of the top 20 happiest countries were led by women — at ratio that far exceeds the proportion of women taking on such roles worldwide.
The study ranks the happiness of citizens based on a three-year average between 2020-2022 and considers six different elements. These elements include: income, health, having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity, and finally, the “absence of corruption all play strong roles in supporting life evaluations.”
Individuals were asked about their social support (“If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them, or not?”), ability to exercise their human rights (“Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?”), community engagement (“Have you donated money to a charity in the past month?”) and general trust in large institutions ( “Is corruption widespread throughout the government or not” and “Is corruption widespread within businesses or not?”)
Participants responded on a scale from 0 to 10: 0 being “completely dissatisfied”, 10 being “completely satisfied”.
The report found that overall rates of altruism increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, since “acute stress or fear motivates people to act, which can manifest as helping behaviour when the stress emerges in a social context.”
“It may also help to explain why in general daily affect is less reliably associated with altruism than life satisfaction,” the report stated, “because acute changes in both positive mood and some forms of negative mood—including acute stress or fear—can motivate helping.”
The report also tracked two measures of misery (low life satisfaction) over the past three years to find that globally, both measures reduced during the COVID-19 years.
So why does Finland, Denmark and Iceland have such happy populations? Let’s look at five possible reasons:
These countries are led by women
Studies have shown that countries with female leaders recorded fewer COVID-19 deaths than nations governed by men, further indicating female political leaders coped better during the pandemic than male leaders.
Finland’s Sanna Marin became an iconic feminist figure, making headlines by partying late into the night like any normal 30-something year old, speaking out against sexism and batting off attempts to make a point about her age (she’s 37).
More than half her cabinet is made up of female ministers. In 2020, Marin announced a new policy giving up to seven months of paid leave to each new parent, for a total of 14 months.
Like Marin, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen became the youngest person to lead her country when she became Prime Minister in 2019. She has been a vocal supporter of victim-survivors of sexual assault, declaring her commitment to end sexism and discrimination in the workplace throughout her leadership.
Last December, when she became the first woman to win a second term leading Denmark, her cabinet was 35 per cent female.
Iceland has had two female Prime Ministers. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir led the country between 2009 to 2013. Four years later, Althing for the Reykjavík North member, Katrín Jakobsdóttir took on the role.
Not only is the 47-year old an avid spokeswoman for women’s leadership and empowerment, she’s also a published author.
Last year, she published her debut thriller novel, ‘Reykjavík’, which she co-wrote with best-selling Icelandic writer, Ragnar Jónasson.
According to one bookseller in Iceland, the novel was the best-selling book in Iceland in 2022.
These countries have great childcare
In Finland, child benefits are paid from State funds for all children aged under 17. Expectant mothers are also entitled to a maternity grant paid by the government.
Finland, Norway and Sweden have cash for childcare schemes for children under 3 who are not enrolled in state-subsidised childcare services. Finland even offers new parents supplementary payments. It’s no wonder they have one of the highest uptakes of those countries.
In Denmark, all children from 26 weeks until school age are guaranteed in place at a day care facility. Parents can claim a 75 percent government subsidy in childcare costs — and even more for parents who do not meet a certain income threshold.
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Iceland has become one of the best countries in the world for working parents.
The country spends a higher percentage of its GDP on early childhood education and child care than any other wealthy nation. Parents in Iceland spend on average 5 per cent of their income on child care.
Not surprising then that 96 per cent of all children aged 3-5 year-olds are enrolled in early childhood education.
They’re all for women being equal to men
It’s interesting to note the correlation between Finland, Denmark and Iceland’s top ranking and their top positions in the World Economic Forum’s gender equality rankings.
Finland ranked second globally for gender equality last year, only losing to Iceland — who came in first. And third place? It wasn’t Denmark, but another Scandinavian country — Norway.
New Zealand and Sweden came in sixth and seventh place, indicating a clear link between the happiest countries and countries that diligently work at securing gender equality across their society.
In these top-ranking countries the different percentages of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work between the sexes including food preparation, dishwashing, cleaning, laundry, ironing, gardening, caring for pets, shopping and servicing and repair of personal and household goods were lower than lower ranked countries.