Bahrain ranking in World Happiness Report 2023 suffers significant drop
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Reported by Julia Cassano
Bahrain is ranked among the top 50 countries in the latest World Happiness Report. However, the kingdom has dropped in the rankings compared to previous releases of the report, as other GCC states have gained positions.
According to the 2022 report, Bahrain was ranked 21st, positioning itself as the top Arab country in the report. However, it’s 42nd ranking this year means it has declined 21 positions since the last report.
The UAE has topped the report for the Arab world, ranking a strong 26th, with Saudi Arabia following in 30th. Finland continues to occupy the top spot in the report, for the sixth year in a row, with a score that is significantly ahead of all other countries.
The Nordic countries are closely aligned, as they all display high rankings for both equality and life evaluations. Why do the happiness levels differ? The report states that the results in the first column explain national average life evaluations measuring six variables, including, GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption.
Emphasized in the category of healthy life expectancy, is mental health. Mental health is a key component of subjective well-being, as it influences and drives several individual choices, behaviours, and outcomes.
The variables listed above are the most significant measures analyzed to determine the data regarding the well-being and happiness of those living in a country. In addition, the report claims social support can be seen to have similar proportionate effects on positive and negative emotions as on life evaluations, more importantly, freedom poses greater associations regarding positive effects.
The report not only analyzes the average happiness but also examines the scale of misery (low satisfaction) in the country among its people. It highlights that for governments to prevent misery in their countries, they should establish rights such as those in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and broaden the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to consider the well-being and environmental policy dimensions.
Bahrain has placed an important focus and is taking major steps towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations General Assembly. The World Happiness Report compares the average life satisfaction in different countries while seeing what features in the population explain the differences.
The 2023 report ranked the countries over a 2020–2022 period; however, the Kingdom’s ranking is established on averages analyzed from 2020–2021. The World Happiness Report is written by a group of independent experts acting in their capacities and is a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
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