New Delhi, India has been ranked 126th out of 143 nations in the latest World Happiness Report 2024, as per the results released to coincide with the UN’s International Day of Happiness.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the report, a collaborative effort by Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report’s Editorial Board, places India behind countries such as Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Palestine, and Niger. In a repeat of previous years’ results, Finland has been identified as the happiest country globally, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Australia. At the opposite end, Afghanistan is listed as the least happy nation.
The Press Trust of India highlighted findings from the report indicating a significant association between age and life satisfaction in India, challenging the notion that this correlation is predominantly observed in wealthier countries. The report specifies that while older Indian men tend to exhibit higher initial levels of life satisfaction, older women report greater overall contentment when various factors are considered.
Furthermore, the report elucidates that older Indians with at least a secondary education and those from higher social castes experience more life satisfaction than their less educated and lower-caste counterparts. It also notes India’s considerable older population, which at 140 million is the second-largest globally, trailing only China.