For the sixth consecutive year, Finland ranks first in the list of countries in the world by degree of happiness of its inhabitants. The Nordic nation, which this Sunday goes to the polls to decide whether or not it wants a new government led by the current prime minister, the social democrat Sanna Marin, triumphs in the World Happiness Report, an annual study by the Network of Solutions for Sustainable Development , an independent group of experts linked to the UN that has compiled this list since 2012 based on data from Gallup polls around the world.
Finland scores very high in the six key factors that experts examine to calibrate the levels of happiness expressed by the population of each country: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
In Oodi, Helsinki’s central library, a place where free access to books is just the beginning of a vast offer of culture and leisure, users apply themselves to their chores while a snowstorm rages outside that does not invite them to go out. The inclement Finnish weather is associated with depression, alcohol abuse and suicide, all of which are present. However, this does not prevent Finns from feeling, in general, lucky and happy.
“Education is probably one of the best things we have; everything is free, so people who want to can study because it doesn’t cost money, and then there are the various possible subsidies that your country gives you,†says Vanessa Palinn, a 17-year-old student doing her homework in the library. According to the young Palinn, “that is why it is possible to be happy here, there is no extreme poverty, we all have housing and health care”, apart from the fact that “friends and family are very important to Finns”, the nuclear family, not the extended family like in southern Europe.
If the essence of happiness in Finland seems to have a clear relationship with the welfare state and with the resources to maintain it, there are also those who make distinctions. “It is one thing to feel safe and protected in your country, because of health, education, etc., and another to feel happy as a person in the interior.”
“That study is exaggerated,” says an elderly couple browsing magazines on a sofa in the library. “Now we are happy because we are in love,” says she, who is 76 years old, lowering her voice in a complicit tone. He is 80. They have been a couple for a year; she lives in Helsinki, he in Mäntsälä, a city 50 kilometers away. They look at each other clandestinely and decide they don’t want to give their names. In the end they concede that having all the needs covered in old age by a protective State facilitates the chance of falling in love at any age.
On another level, the Visit Finland tourist portal exults with Finland’s sixth year as the leader of the happiness ranking and maintains, in a play on words about landscape and people, that “happiness is in our nature”. He attributes it in part to the fact that “Finns enjoy simple pleasures, such as clean air, pure water and walking through the woods” and argues that “Finnish happiness is the calm and peaceful kind.”
But he also stresses that in Finland “public services function smoothly, there are low levels of crime and corruption, and there is a built-up trust between government and citizens” and that “all this leads together to create a functioning society and a culture of watch over everyone.”
Perhaps it influences the happiness of the Finns that problems are sweated (literally) in the three million existing saunas in a country of 5.5 million inhabitants. The sauna is on the Unesco list of intangible cultural heritage, which highlights its value in customs and well-being. And for many Finns, the sauna is linked to leisure time next to one of the 188,000 lakes in a country that also has more than 40 national parks.
Sure, admits student Vanessa Palinn, “it’s very cold and there’s a kind of winter blues, there are people in Finland who get down because of bad weather. But I love the rain, I adore rainy days. The weather is not that important.â€
The new data on happiness in the world were published on March 20, the International Day of Happiness by indication of the UN. In this year’s list, the presence of all the Nordic countries and several European countries in the top ten is striking, which are (in this order): Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand, which leads us to think about the importance of the resources of the welfare state for people to feel happy. Spain is ranked 33.
At the bottom of the ranking of 138 countries appear as the most unfortunate those that suffer conflicts: Sierra Leone, Lebanon and, finally, Afghanistan.
Ukraine, invaded by Russia more than a year ago, ranks 93rd, which also attests to its resilience and the foreign support it receives.
