Jakarta’s traffic has returned to pre-pandemic levels, after the government ended Covid-19 public activity restrictions. - AFP
JAKARTA: Indonesia comes in at number 80 in a list of the world's happiest countries published on Wednesday (March 20) as part of an annual United Nations-sponsored study.
In the World Happiness Report, Finland remained the world's happiest country for the seventh straight year, while Indonesia improved its position from number 84 of 109 countries surveyed in 2023.
This year, 143 countries appear on the list. Indonesia's position on the list is far lower than its peers in South-East Asia.
Of Asean countries appearing on the list, Singapore ranked the highest at 30th position, while the Philippines came in at a distant 53rd position. Vietnam followed closely behind the Philippines in 54th position, while Thailand and Malaysia appeared lower on the list respectively in 58th and 59th.
In the Asean region, Indonesia only scored better against Laos, which appeared at 94th position and Myanmar at 118th position.
The survey found that across South-East Asia there is an overall tendency for the level of happiness to regress, with the steepest decline reported in Singapore.
"The 10 countries of South-East Asia, with Indonesia the largest and Singapore the smallest, show a declining structure of happiness across age groups and a gender difference favouring young females," the report said.
The happiness ranking is based on individuals' self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, as well as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
Afghanistan, plagued by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, stayed at the bottom of the 143 countries surveyed.
For the first time since the report was published more than a decade ago, the United States and Germany were not among the 20 happiest nations, coming in 23rd and 24th respectively.
In turn, Costa Rica and Kuwait entered the top 20 at 12 and 13. The report noted the happiest countries no longer included any of the world's largest countries.
"In the top-10 countries only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. In the whole of the top 20, only Canada and the UK have populations over 30 million."
The sharpest decline in happiness since 2006-10 was noted in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Jordan, while the Eastern European countries Serbia, Bulgaria and Latvia reported the biggest increases. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
