Tajikistan has been recognized as the ‘least happy’ country in in Central Asia, according to the UN World Happiness Report 2022, which was released on March 18.
Tajikistan with 5.377 scores ranks 83rd among 146th countries (five points lower than last year. Last year, the World Happiness Report ranked Tajikistan 78th among 149th countries.
This year, Kazakhstan with 6.234 score was named the happiest country in the Central Asian region.
Uzbekistan (6.063) ranks 53rd, Kyrgyzstan (5.828) – 64th, and Turkmenistan* (5.474) – 78th.
(Note: Turkmenistan does not have survey information in 2020 or 2021. Its averages are based on the 2019 survey).
For the fifth year in a row, Finland has topped the rankings of the World Happiness Report.
According to the report, Finland (7.821), Denmark (7.636), Iceland (7.557), Switzerland (7.512), the Netherlands (7.415), Luxembourg (7.404), Sweden (7.384), Norway (7.365), Israel (7.364) and New Zealand (7.200) are the top 10 happiest nations in the world.
Afghanistan, which has seen its humanitarian crisis deepen since the Taliban took power again last August, is at the bottom of the table.
Zambia (3.760), Malawi (3.750), Tanzania (3.702), Sierra Leone (3.574), Lesotho (3.512), Botswana (3.471), Rwanda (3.268), Zimbabwe (2.995), Lebanon (2.955), and Afghanistan (2.404) are recognized as the least happy countries in the world.
This is the tenth anniversary of the World Happiness Report. The first World Happiness Report was presented on April 2, 2012.
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It contains articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives, which the report also correlates with various (quality of) life factors. The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll.
The rankings of national happiness are based on a Cantril ladder survey. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The report correlates the life evaluation results with various life factors.
The use of subjective measurements of wellbeing is meant to be a bottom-up approach which emancipates respondents to evaluate their own wellbeing. In this context, the value of the Cantril Ladder is the fact that a respondent can self-anchor themselves based on their perspective.
In the reports, experts in fields including economics, psychology, survey analysis, and national statistics, describe how measurements of well-being can be used effectively to assess the progress of nations, and other topics. Each report is organized by chapters that delve deeper into issues relating to happiness, including mental illness, the objective benefits of happiness, the importance of ethics, policy implications, and links with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s approach to measuring subjective well-being and other international and national efforts.
