The Philippines is the second happiest country in the Southeast Asian region.
Ranking 53rd overall in the annual UN sponsored World Happiness Report – a significant leap from its 76th spot last year – the Philippines was only edged out by Singapore for the top spot for the Southeast Asian region.
The happiness ranking is based on individuals’ self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, as well as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
Finland remained the world’s happiest country for a seventh straight year, and Nordic countries kept their places among the 10 most cheerful, with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden trailing Finland.
Afghanistan, plagued by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, stayed at the bottom of the 143 countries surveyed.
For the first time since the report was published more than a decade ago, the United States and Germany were not among the 20 happiest nations, coming in 23rd and 24th respectively.
The report noted the happiest countries no longer included any of the world’s largest countries.
“In the top 10 countries only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. In the whole of the top 20, only Canada and the UK have populations over 30 million.”
Happiness inequality increased in every region except Europe, which authors described as a “worrying trend.”
The rise was especially distinct among the old and in Sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting inequalities in “income, education, health care, social acceptance, trust, and the presence of supportive social environments at the family, community and national levels,” the authors said.