Why are Italians ranked among the ‘unhappiest in Europe'?
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Loading... - Kasih Chin
- 24 Mar 2022
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Italy’s population has placed among the least content in Europe, according to a new study by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Happiness can be a woolly concept and hard to define, but the 2022 World Happiness Report has attempted to do that in a global survey of almost 150 countries.
Italy ranked 31st worldwide, faring well on a worldwide scale, but in Europe it lagged way behind some of its neighbours – who not only ranked highly in Europe but globally too. Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland took the four top spots globally.
In Europe, Italy also placed behind France, Germany, Austria, Ireland and slightly behind Spain and Romania.
Why were Italians ranked as being unhappy?
Based on scores over the period 2019-2021, the study took into account the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which may go some way to explaining Italy’s poor happiness index as it bore the brunt of the first waves of coronavirus infection in Europe in 2020.
Of course, there will be individual variations and happiness is difficult to scientifically define or measure.
Researchers used the following seven categories to assess each country’s happiness level:
Social support
Life expectancy
Freedom to make life choices
Generosity
GDP per capita
Perceptions of corruption
Positive and negative affects – dystopia (evaluating how much better life is in a given country in comparison to ones with bad living conditions).
“Our measurement of subjective well-being continues to rely on three main indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions,” the report said.
“Happiness rankings are based on life evaluations as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives.”
Italy scored quite well in terms of its GDP, social support and healthy life expectancy, but respondents expressed a much lower value of freedom to make life choices compared to its European neighbours. Italians didn’t fare so well in dystopia either.
The report highlighted how Italy’s anxiety and sadness grew in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, based on social media analysis. Read More..
