World Happiness Report 2023 3 Chapter 2. World Happiness, Trust, and Social Connections in Times of Crisis • Life evaluations have continued to be remarkably resilient, with global averages in the COVID-19 years 2020-2022 just as high as those in the pre-pandemic years 2017-2019. Finland remains in the top position for the sixth year in a row. War-torn Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, with average life evaluations more than five points lower (on a scale running from 0 to 10) than in the ten happiest countries. • T o study the inequality of happiness, we first focus on the happiness gap between the top and the bottom halves of the population. This gap is small in countries where most people are happy but also in those countries where almost no one is happy. However, more generally, people are happier living in countries where the happiness gap is smaller. Happiness gaps globally have been fairly stable over time, although there are growing gaps in many African countries. • W e also track two measures of misery - the share of the population having life evaluations of 4 and below and the share rating the lives at 3 and below. Globally, both of these measures of misery fell slightly during the three COVID-19 years. • T o help to explain this continuing resilience, we document four cases that suggest how trust and social support can support happiness during crises. • COVID-19 deaths. In 2020 and 2021, countries attempting to suppress community transmission had lower death rates and better well-being overall. Not enough countries followed suit, thus enabling new variants to emerge, such that in 2022, Omicron made elimination infeasible. Although trust continues to be correlated with lower death rates in 2022, policy strategies, infections, and death rates are now very similar in all countries, but with total deaths over all three years being much lower in the eliminator countries. • Benevolence. There was a globe-spanning surge of benevolence in 2020 and especially in 2021. Data for 2022 show that prosocial acts remain about one-quarter more common than before the pandemic. • Ukraine and Russia. Both countries shared the global increases in benevolence during 2020 and 2021. During 2022, benevolence grew sharply in Ukraine but fell in Russia. Despite the magnitude of suffering and damage in Ukraine, life evaluations in September 2022 remained higher than in the aftermath of the 2014 annexation, supported now by a stronger sense of common purpose, benevolence, and trust in Ukrainian leadership. Confidence in their national governments grew in 2022 in both countries, but much more in Ukraine than in Russia. Ukrainian support for Russian leadership fell to zero in all parts of Ukraine in 2022. • Social support. New data show that positive social connections and support in 2022 were twice as prevalent as loneliness in seven key countries spanning six global regions. They were also strongly tied to overall ratings of how satisfied people are with their relationships with other people. The importance of these positive social relations helps further to explain the resilience of life evaluations during times of crisis. Chapter 3. Well-being and State Effectiveness • T he effectiveness of the government has a major influence on human happiness of the people. • T he capacity of a state can be well-measured by - its fiscal capacity (ability to raise money) - its collective capacity (ability to deliver services) - its legal capacity (rule of law) Also crucial are - the avoidance of civil war, and - the avoidance of repression. • A cross countries, all these five measures are well correlated with the average life satisfaction of the people.
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