Sri Lanka ranked 129 out of 149 countries in the World Happiness Report 2021, released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. 

Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world, a feat the Nordic nation achieved for the fourth consecutive year.

Among neighboring countries, India ranked 139th, Pakistan 105th, China 84th, and Bangladesh 101st.

Afghanistan was the least happiest country on the list, while the nine other nations that ranked below India were Burundi, Yemen, Tanzania, Haiti, Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

The survey used the Gallup World Poll that asked people to vote on three indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions.

In the case of life evaluations, the respondents were asked to rate their life on a ladder. “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top,” the question stated. “The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

For positive emotions, people were asked to respond in binary terms (0 and 1) on three measures: “happiness”, “laugh” and “enjoyment”. The respondents had to give a binary response on whether they experienced these emotions on the day they polled and the day before.

For negative emotions, the same exercise was conducted on the three measures of “worry”, “sadness” and “anger”.

Apart from these, the report also took into account data related to per capita Gross Domestic Product, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity and corruption perception.

-With inputs from agencies