This thesis is about the World Happiness Report and Finland. Finland has been chosen as the world’s “happiest country” for four consecutive years from 2018 to 2021 in the World Happiness Report and is often reported as the “happiest country” in both national and international media outlets. Yet many Finns seem to question the idea of Finland as the “happiest country” in the world.
This paper explores both why Finland ranks high in the World Happiness Report and why Finns tend not to agree with the results. It examines the concept of happiness in scholarly literature and analyzes the responses to a questionnaire regarding Finns’ attitudes toward the report. The leading hypothesis is that the usage of the particular word “happiness” is a major reason why Finnish people tend not to believe the results of the World Happiness Report.
The research consists of two parts. The first part analyzes the concept of happiness and topics around happiness in relation to the World Happiness Report. It also overviews how the related terms, such as subjective well-being and life satisfaction, are used in the World Happiness Report. It shows happiness is a concept that can be understood in various ways and that the term happiness is ambiguously used in the World Happiness Report. In addition, topics related to happiness and life satisfaction in Finland are also discussed to present that life satisfaction in Finland has been high but that the feeling of happiness may be different.
The second part is social research using a questionnaire survey. The survey asked Finns how they think about the results of the World Happiness Report. The results of the survey support the hypothesis that ambiguously used terms would be one of the reasons why Finns tend not to agree with the results of the World Happiness Report.
Overall, the conclusion is that Finland’s high ranking in the World Happiness Report owes much to the contentment with the current situation explained by the social structure with comprehensive support. More Finns would agree with the results of the World Happiness Report if the report stated more clearly that the ranking is based on people’s life evaluations instead of using the term happiness.
