TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Singapore was voted the happiest country in Asia for two years in a row, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report which was released on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Singapore was ranked 30th out of 143 places surveyed for this research.

Topping the list of happiest countries this year is Finland, followed by Denmark and Iceland. The World Happiness Report is a joint effort of some of the world's leading well-being researchers and scientists.

The happiness rankings in this study are supported by Gallup World Poll data which measures the average life evaluation of individuals, taken over three years from 2021 to 2023.

In Asia, the 10 happiest countries are:

1. Singapore,

2. Taiwan,

3. Japan,

4. South Korea,

5. the Philippines,

6. Vietnam,

7. Thailand,

8. Malaysia,

9. China,

10. Mongolia.

The list was obtained by experts by analyzing data on six main factors: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption. Their research into these areas provides deeper insights and potential explanations regarding the subjective assessments of quality of life that people give.

"These factors help explain differences between countries, while the rankings themselves are based solely on the answers people give when asked to rate their own lives," the World Happiness Report said.

Data collected for the six factors comes from organizations such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, and Gallup World Poll.

“Singapore performs very well in terms of GDP per capita, one of the highest rankings in our data set,” said Shun Wang, co-author and editor of the 2024 World Happiness Report.

Singapore also does very well in terms of perceived corruption, the lowest among all countries. “That means the Singapore government is really clean and its people have a very low perception of corruption… even lower, compared to Denmark or Norway,” added Wang.

According to the report, Myanmar, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are some of the unhappiest countries in Asia. India, the country with the largest population in the world, is ranked 126th out of 143 countries surveyed.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is ranked 80th in the World Happiest Country data, below Colombia and Venezuela which are ranked 78th and 79th in the world.

CNBC | WORLD POPULATION REVIEW

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