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World Happiness Report: Unfair or kind to Sri Lanka?

20 Mar 2022

By Sumudu Chamara Top 10 countries in the World Happiness Index 2022
  1. Finland – 7.821 points
  2. Denmark – 7.636 points
  3. Iceland – 7.557 points
  4. Switzerland – 7.512 points
  5. The Netherlands – 7.415 points
  6. Luxembourg – 7.404 points
  7. Sweden – 7.384 points
  8. Norway – 7.365 points
  9. Israel – 7.364 points
  10. New Zealand – 7.200 points
Other South Asian countries’ positions on the World Happiness Index 2022
  • Nepal – 84th pace – 5.377 points
  • Bangladesh – 94th place – 5.155 points
  • Pakistan – 121st place – 4.516 points
  • India – 136th place – 3.777 points
  • Afghanistan – 146th place – 2.404 points
Despite the constant promises provided by the Government and authorities, Sri Lankans are living in a time of great uncertainty, and the common question raised by many people waiting in queues is whether the authorities would prevent tomorrow from becoming an even worse day.  In a context where concepts such as satisfaction, contentment, and happiness are gradually becoming unfamiliar to Sri Lankans, the World Happiness Report 2022 was released on 18 March, based on a three-year average evaluation of national happiness. World Happiness Report 2022 The report, drafted by a group of independent experts based on surveys, ranked Sri Lanka at the 127th place with 4.362 points. When compared with the 2021 report, which ranked Sri Lanka at the 129th place in 2021, Sri Lanka has moved up by two places, despite the three-year period between 2019 and 2022 including the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns and deaths, and the beginning of an unprecedented economic crisis in the second half of 2021. With regard to trends in conceptions of progress and wellbeing, the report said that interest in happiness and subjective wellbeing has risen sharply, whether measured by the frequency of those words in books in multiple global languages, or by the scale of published research, or by the number of government measurement initiatives. The report added: “When organisations, academics, or governments try to define progress through creating a new set of indicators, they increasingly include measures of happiness. This reflects the strong public appetite for this conception of progress and the growing availability of data on happiness. Thus, the science of happiness has much to offer governments devising better policies. But it can never tell them how to handle inequality or questions of long-run sustainability.” The report had also used social media data to capture emotions before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Adding that millions of people share their thoughts and feelings online via social media each day, and that automated analysis of social media data offers exciting promise for measuring trends in emotions, the report explained: “The methods used include counts of emotional words listed in emotion dictionaries and machine learning methods which also take into account the structure and meaning of sentences. Two case studies of Tweets on Twitter examined the daily and weekly movements of positive and negative emotions, including sadness and anxiety, before and during Covid-19 in the UK and Austria. These were then compared with the measurements of these emotions as recorded in standard social surveys of the population. The two measures of emotion (social media-based and survey-based) tracked each other extraordinarily well, although clear differences between text analysis methods and emotions exist. The Twitter measures of emotion were less closely related to survey-based questions on life satisfaction.” The report revealed that with regard to the impact of Covid-19, Twitter data in 18 countries had shown strong increases in anxiety and sadness during Covid-19 (together with decreases in anger), and that these changes in anxiety and sadness were positively related to the incidence of Covid-19 itself and the stringency of anti-Covid-19 measures. It further pointed out that it is becoming increasingly clear that measures of emotion from social media can effectively complement measures based on social surveys when robust methods are applied. According to the report, the factors that affect happiness do not include merely economic or social factors. It claims that genetic studies involving twin or family designs have revealed that about 30-40% of the differences in happiness between people within a country are accounted for by genetic differences between people, and that the other 60-70% of differences between people result from the effect of environmental influences that are independent of the genes. “Some people are born with a set of genetic variants that makes it easier to feel happy, while others are less fortunate. But, genes and environment are generally correlated: genes can affect people’s choice of environment and how others react to them. At the same time, genes can influence how people are affected by the world around them – there is ‘gene-environment interaction’,” the report said.  Among positive experiences, the report said, Eastern culture gives special value to experiences of balance and harmony. It added that even though these are important, low-arousal positive emotions have been relatively neglected in happiness research, which have stronger roots in Western cultures.  It explained: “The experiences of balance, peace, and calm are more prevalent in Western countries, which also experience the highest levels of satisfaction – and they are less prevalent in poorer countries, including those in East Asia. The majority of people in almost every country prefer a calmer life to an exciting one. But, that preference is no higher in Eastern countries than elsewhere. However, it is particularly high in the poorer countries, especially in Africa, where actual calm is low. Both balance and peace contributes strongly to a satisfying life in all regions of the world.”  The report noted: “Life evaluations differ more between countries than emotions and are better explained by the widely differing life experiences in different countries. Emotions experienced the previous day are well explained by events of the day being asked about, while life evaluations more closely reflect the circumstances of life’s circumstances,” , adding that emotions are significant forms of support for life evaluations and provide essential insights into how quality of life has changed during Covid-19 for people in different life circumstances. The report’s measurement of subjective wellbeing relies on three main wellbeing indicators, namely, life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions, and happiness rankings are based on life evaluations as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives. The Gallup World Poll, a system of studying/evaluating crucial world issues, was the principal source of data for this report, and it asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the mental image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a zero. Typically, around 1,000 responses are gathered annually for each country. Weights are used to construct population-representative national averages for each year in each country. National happiness rankings are based on a three-year average, thereby increasing the sample size to provide more precise estimates. Happiness among Sri Lankan At a time Sri Lanka is going through one of the worst, if not the worst, economic and social crises in its history, being happy has become a topic that is seldom discussed. In a context where people from all walks of life are going through these crises in various ways, The Morning spoke to several members of the public about their understanding of happiness, how happy they are, and what they think of Sri Lanka’s place in the World Happiness Report. Nishantha*, a 41-year-old software developer, questioned the existence of happiness among Sri Lankans amidst the prevailing economic crisis. “Who in this day and age is happy? What is there to be happy about? The rich and powerful may be happy, because they have money and also power to get what they want even amidst this economic crisis. The middle-class, working people, do not have money to buy even the most basic goods from stores, or even to bribe someone and get goods illegally. If I had money, I would break the law and be selfish to get what my family wants; who would not? I do not think we can even have a conversation about happiness in the current Sri Lankan context. In fact, we, or the normal working class people, have forgotten how to be happy during the past few months.” He questioned: “When you cannot go to work because there is no fuel, when you cannot work from home because there is no electricity, when you cannot eat because almost every nutritious and essential food item is expensive and is scarce, and when your child cannot sit for an exam that was postponed several times because of difficulties in obtaining papers for exam papers, what happiness can we possibly talk about?” K.N. Aruna Perera, a 53-year-old private sector worker, meanwhile, raised concerns about the methods employed to measure happiness, and Sri Lanka being ranked at a considerable place in the Happiness Index.   “I do not know about this index you are talking about. But, like various measures of production and income Sri Lankan authorities use in order to undermine the people’s struggles, this index about happiness should be based on statistics from economic reports and institutions, not on people’s real experiences. If whoever drafted this report had talked to at least five random Sri Lankans, they would have put Sri Lanka at the very bottom of this report. I wonder why a country that has no future was even included in this report.” He described how happiness among Sri Lankans deteriorated in the recent past: “A year ago, Sri Lankans had to worry only about contracting and dying of Covid-19. Six months ago, we started worrying seriously about the lack of imported essential goods and the availability of locally produced food. Today, we have had to worry about every essential good and the future of children. Can we even think about even a bit of happiness in people who are trying to just get by? “Forget about being happy. A year ago, in the beginning of the second year of the pandemic, I was extremely stable financially, socially, and psychologically, and so was almost every person I knew. Today, I am trying to survive, and make sure that my family stays alive and does not have to beg in case I collapse and die in a queue like that old man who died last Saturday (19). Being happy has become a luxury not many people can afford.” Malani*, a 34-year-old teacher, also expressed similar opinions, while also explaining the impact of the prevailing economic crisis on children and mental health. “We must not be quick or narrow-minded to label the prevailing crises as economic crisis, health crisis, or social crisis. All these crises are interconnected, and have some kind of effect on one another. For example, when parents lack money to pay for online tuition classes conducted by me, they stopped children from attending classes, which obviously means that the economic crisis affected children’s education, which in turn can affect the next generation’s level of education and productivity. In addition, I have talked with parents who had to stop giving their children certain types of special milk powders, because they cannot afford it anymore, which, needless to say, can affect the future generation. These are not signs of happy lives. They are not only unhappy, but they are also depressed about their future. “From what I have heard from parents and children, they are living in great uncertainty and fear, because the prevailing situation does not seem to be getting better. Even though some reliefs are offered by the Government, they are not enough to address the said uncertainty or fear. This situation affects children’s mental health more, because these economic difficulties instil uncertainty and fear in their minds. In such a situation, discussing happiness is a joke.” Several other persons The Morning spoke to expressed similar sentiments about how happy they are. They were of the opinion that questions about whether Sri Lankans are happy should be asked once the prevailing crises are over.  While happiness is an extremely subjective topic, as was said by the general public, it is evident that matters such as happiness and satisfaction are unlikely to receive the people’s attention until and unless the pressing issues they are dealing with are resolved. *Names have been changed on request


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