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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Norway slips again on UN’s happiness report

A new UN report confirms that money can’t always buy happiness: Even though Norway is among the wealthiest countries in the world, its people aren’t as happy as they were in earlier years, and experts suspect a rise in social differences.

Norway now ranks 7th on the UN’s World Happiness Report, down from 3rd in 2018. There’s been a steady decline in the ranking, to 5th place in 2019 and 6th last year.

That suggests Norwegians are the least happy of those in all the five Nordic countries, with Finland first, followed by Denmark and Iceland. Sweden edged out Norway for 6th place, right behind The Netherlands and Israel.

Finland’s success was attributed to few differences within quality of life bolstered by strong welfare programs. “Perhaps the Finns are more modest, with lower expectations than us,” Ragnhild Bang Nes, a researcher at the public health institute FHI, told news bureau NTB.

The annual report on national satisfaction is based on data from the Gallup World Poll. Other countries making up the top 10 countries with the happiest people were Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Residents of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Lebanon were the unhappiest of all 137 nations included in the survey of 1,000 people in each.

NewsinEnglish.no staff

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