In the happiest countries there is little joy

It has become something of a yearly ritual when the latest Happiness Index is released and once again it is somewhere in the Nordics. Finland being the unlikely winner for the last eight years in a row, after displacing somewhere else in the Nordics. The title is something of a misnomer because it isn’t really asking whether individuals are actually happy, but how satisfied are they with their life. There are no happy people in Finland they would just much rather live in Finland than anywhere else. And the rest of the world is happy that this is so.

Joking aside, the Finns have good reason (apart from the trouble with the neighbours) to be satisfied with life in Finland. Poverty is low, most people are well off, things work, corruption is low, there is good education and health care and all in all there are many, many worse places to live and everyone in Finland knows it.

The most obvious proof of this is that Finns are in no great rush to go seek a better life somewhere else. There is no mass emigration of Finns looking to make it in Moscow. There are reasons why people want to live in countries with a higher score.

Various other organisations have found the Nordics to be some of the most stable, progressive and safe countries in the world. They dominate the high positions in The Economist’s glass-ceiling index, which measures the role and influence of women in the workforce. Deaths of despair, including suicides and unintentional overdoses, are quickly decreasing in the region, albeit from a historically high baseline (life-evaluation scores alone do not capture all of the factors that can lead to deaths of despair). The Nordics are also some of the wealthiest countries in the world per person, which typically has a significant effect on life satisfaction (see chart 2).

Lessons from the happiest countries in the world

Yet Finns, and the Nordics, could be even happier, or actually happy if they chose a few things differently. Divorce remains pretty high in this part of the world (nudging 40% in Finland) and there is a marriage premium (ie broadly speaking it makes you happier). Or they could simply eat with their neighbours, but I can confidently say that is not the sort of thing the Nordics excel at.

Proverbs 15:13 says, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful…” and if that was the measure of happiness then the Nordics, and the Finns in particular, might find themselves at the bottom and not the top of the table. For those kind of happy hearts you should travel to Latin America.

These countries have also outperformed the Nordics in other studies of happiness, such as how often people laugh or feel a sense of enjoyment. The researchers offer a possible explanation. They found that eating with people, compared with eating alone, was a surprisingly strong indicator of subjective wellbeing—as statistically significant as income and employment status. That holds true even when accounting for other factors, such as age and education. Latin America is a “global leader” in meal-sharing, say the authors.

Lessons from the happiest countries in the world

The bottom line is that meaningful connections and relationships make you happier. And the most meaningful connection of all, which is the true source of joy (and should also make your face glad) is relationship with God. Sadly on that measure, the Nordics are also coming bottom not top of the table.