General international : International : News : The Hankyoreh

An international survey found that South Korea is at the bottom among 38 OECD member countries in terms of subjective happiness, where citizens themselves evaluate their quality of life. On the 20th, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published the subjective happiness scores of the citizens of 137 countries surveyed in the ‘World Happiness Report 2023’ published to celebrate the ‘International Day of Happiness’ set by the United Nations. he did This annual report, published for the 11th time this year, is an analysis based on ‘Subjective Well-being’ data conducted annually by the Gallup World Poll (GWP) in countries around the world. Scores and rankings were compiled with data from the last three years, and this year’s report was analyzed based on survey data from 2020 to 2022. The report identified six factors that can affect happiness: △Income (GDP per capita) △Social support (and is there anyone to rely on) △Health (life expectancy) △Freedom to make decisions △Hai in groups △Corruption still whether or not. In this report, the Koreans ranked 57th in subjective happiness with 5.951 points out of 10. Only three places were Greece (5.931 points, 58th), Colombia (5.630 points, 72nd), and Turkey (4.614, 106th) among the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In reports published every year since 2012, Korea ranks 40th to 60th with an average of about 6 points.

Finland came first in terms of happiness (7.804 points), coming first in the world for six years in a row. Most European countries were in the top 10. Non-European countries included Israel (4th) and New Zealand (10th). In Asia, Singapore (6.587 points) was the highest at 25th, and Taiwan (6.535 points) was 27th. It was followed by Kazakhstan (6.144 points, 44th place), Japan (6.129 points, 47th place), Uzbekistan (6.014 points, 54th place), and Malaysia (6.012 points, 55th place). Asian countries that were lower than Korea were Thailand (5.843 points, 60th place), Mongolia (5.840 points, 61st place), China (5.818 points, 64th place), and India (4.036 points, 126th place). Among 137 countries, the country with the lowest happiness was Afghanistan (1.859 points). Russia, which has been at war since last year, was in 70th place with a score of 5.661, and Ukraine in 92nd place with a score of 5.071. After adopting a resolution announcing March 20 as the International Day of Happiness in the General Assembly in 2012, the United Nations has published this report with the intention that the levels of happiness of more people should be measured and evaluated. In the foreword to this report, the United Nations said, “The success of a country should be measured by the happiness of its people, and we have published this report to ensure that happiness becomes the goal of government management in every country .” Meanwhile, the report revealed that there was no significant change in the happiness of each country between 2017 and 2019 before the corona pandemic and between 2020 and 2022 during the pandemic. “2022 was a year of crisis with the ongoing pandemic, war in Ukraine, global inflation and global climate crisis,” the report said. So this data will provide more evidence of how the whole world will respond to the crisis. ” Correspondent Kim Mi-hyang aroma@hani.co.kr