'I'm unhappy' South Korea ranks 57th in happiness ranking

South Korea ranks fourth from the bottom of the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in terms of happiness score, which is a measure of people's overall quality of life.

The United Nations Network for Sustainable Development and Solutions (SDSN), which has offices in Paris, New York, and Kuala Lumpur, released its World Happiness Report (WHR) on March 20th, the International Happiness Day designated by the United Nations. In this year's report, South Koreans gave themselves an average of 5.951 out of 10 points for subjective happiness, placing them 57th out of 137 countries surveyed. Japan is 47th. This report is based on an analysis of data from the Gallup World Poll (GWP) annual survey on subjective well-being (SWB) conducted around the world each year. Scores and ranks are calculated. This year's report used the 2020-2022 survey data.

There were many Nordic countries in the top 10. Denmark (7.586 points), Iceland (7.530 points), Israel (7.473 points), Netherlands (7.403 points), Sweden (7.395 points), Norway (7.315 points), Switzerland (7.240 points), Luxembourg (7.228 points), New Zealand (7.123 points) ranked 2nd to 10th.

In Asia, Singapore (6.587 points, 25th), United Arab Emirates (6.571 points), and Taiwan (6.535 points) ranked 25th to 27th, followed by Saudi Arabia (6.463 points, 30th place) and Bahrain (6.173 points). , 42nd), Kazakhstan (6.144 points, 44th place), Japan (6.129 points, 47th place), Uzbekistan (6.014 points, 54th place), and Malaysia (6.012 points, 55th place) were also higher than South Korea.

Thailand (5.843 points), Mongolia (5.840 points, 61st place), China (5.818 points, 64th place), and India (4.036 points, 126th place) were lower than Korea. Of the 137 countries recorded in this year's report, the country with the lowest happiness score was Afghanistan (1.859 points). The bottom bloc was mostly underdeveloped countries.

Russia, which has been at war since last year, ranked 70th with 5.661 points, while Ukraine ranked 92nd with 5.071 points.

Comparing before and after COVID-19, the proportion of the world's population who do "good deeds" such as donating to strangers and volunteering has increased considerably. When comparing 2017-2019 before COVID-19 with 2020-2022 during COVID-19, there was no significant change in global happiness.