Indonesia has been ranked 80th in the world’s happiest countries list, according to the annual United Nations-sponsored World Happiness Report published on Wednesday (March 20). While Finland maintained its position as the world’s happiest country for the seventh consecutive year, Indonesia has moved up from its previous ranking of 84 out of 109 countries surveyed in 2023.
Despite the improvement, Indonesia’s placement on the list is considerably lower compared to its counterparts in South-East Asia. Among the ASEAN countries included in the survey, Singapore ranked the highest at 30th position, followed by the Philippines at 53rd, Vietnam at 54th, and Thailand and Malaysia at 58th and 59th positions respectively.
In the ASEAN region, Indonesia scored better only against Laos, which ranked 94th, and Myanmar, which ranked 118th. The study also revealed an overall tendency for happiness levels to regress across Southeast Asia, with Singapore experiencing the steepest decline.
The happiness ranking is determined based on individuals’ self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, as well as various factors including GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption.
Afghanistan, grappling with a humanitarian crisis since the Taliban regained control in 2020, remained at the bottom of the list among the 143 countries surveyed. Interestingly, for the first time in more than a decade, the United States and Germany were not among the top 20 happiest nations, ranking 23rd and 24th respectively.
Instead, Costa Rica and Kuwait entered the top 20 at 12th and 13th positions. The report highlighted that the happiest countries no longer included any of the world’s largest nations.
Furthermore, the sharpest decline in happiness since 2006-2010 was observed in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Jordan, while Eastern European countries like Serbia, Bulgaria, and Latvia reported the largest increases.
