Czech Republic ranks 18th in the World Happiness Report 2021

8. 4. 2021 | News

Living in the Czech RepublicThe World Happiness Report 2021 ranked the Czech Republic as the 18th happiest country in the world, one place higher than in 2020. The Czech position in the annual ranking has been steadily improving in recent years. Finland has been reported the happiest country across globe, followed by Denmark, Switzerland and Iceland.

The annual World Happiness Report evaluates data provided by the Gallup World Poll to measures well-being and quality of life in countries across the globe. This year, the report has been influenced by the pandemic, therefore the researchers included a broader variety of data to acknowledge happiness impacts of COVID-19.

Authors of the report measure subjective well-being based on three main criteria: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions (described in the report as positive and negative affect). Their happiness rankings are based on life evaluations, as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives.

The report presents overall life evaluations and measures of positive and negative emotions compared to data from 2017-2019 before the pandemic. It also presents its usual ranking based on the three-year average of life evaluation in between 2018-2020.  In addition, this year’s report takes into consideration how COVID-19 has affected individual nations and how different demographic, social and political variables contributed to different outcomes. The aim of the authors was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world have dealt with the pandemic. In particular, they wanted to explain why some countries have reacted better than others.

Ranking of happiness 2018-2020

1. Finland

2. Denmark

3. Switzerland

4. Iceland

5. Netherlands

6. Norway

7. Sweden

8. Luxembourg

9. New Zealand

10. Austria

11. Australia

12. Israel

13. Germany

14. Canada

15. Ireland

16. Costa Rica

17. United Kingdom

18. Czech Republic

19. United States

20. Belgium

 

Source: https://worldhappiness.report/