World Happiness Report 2023 60 the other Nordic countries. By the end of 2022, however, most countries had similar strategies and similar death rates, reflecting the increasingly endemic nature of the virus. Growth of benevolence during the pandemic A striking feature of the benevolence data presented in World Happiness Report 2022 was the sharp increase in the helping of strangers during 2020 and especially 2021, coupled with significant increases in 2021 in both volunteering and donations. Figure 2.6 below now shows these three measures of generosity for each of the three COVID-19 years, in each case compared to the average values 2017-2019. The average of the three measures, labelled ‘prosocial’, is shown by the right-hand set of bars. There has been much interest in whether these high levels of benevolence would be maintained in 2022 as the Omicron and other variants gradually shifted COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic status, and many pre-pandemic patterns of life were resumed. Could some part of the 2021 benevolence boost be maintained? The 2022 results in Figure 2.6 show that although benevolent acts have become slightly less frequent than in 2021, they remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, which is the case for all global regions. There remain some interesting differences among the regions. Before the pandemic, prosociality was significantly higher in Western than in Eastern Europe, averaging 23% in Eastern Europe and 38% in Western Europe. In 2021, prosociality was up by 2% in Western Europe and by 17% in Eastern Europe, erasing the pre-pandemic gap. At the global level, there is a somewhat similar comparison to be made. In 2017-2019 the percentage of the population involved in the selected prosocial acts was 40% in the Western industrial countries66 and 30% in the rest of the world. This gap was substantially closed during the past three years, especially in 2021 and 2022. Globally, the continued high levels of benevolence likely help to support high happiness,67 with some added potential for creating a virtuous circle supporting future benevolence.68 Fig 2.6: Percentage of population performing benevolent acts 2020, 2021, and 2022 compared to 2017-2019 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 Donation Volunteer Help stranger Prosocial 2020 2021 2022 Percentage during pandemic minus percentage pre-pandemic
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