World Happiness Report 2018 from Hungarian perspective – promising or shocking results?

By now, we know based on several previous reports that Hungarians are not the happiest people in the world. Still, an improving tendency can be witnessed when looking at this year’s research, reports Infostart.hu. The World Happiness Report 2018 measuring the state of global happiness in 156 countries worldwide, focused on other issues as well, such as changes seen in the level of happiness compared to previous years, health problems affecting the whole nation and the tolerance of countries towards immigrants. Here is what Hungary’s 69th position on the list means compared to the results of other countries.

World Happiness

The World Happiness Report was made based on the results of the Gallup World Poll surveys conducted between 2015 and 2017 in 156 countries. The general happiness of each nation was examined by taking into consideration the GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption, can be read on Worldhappiness.report.

The TOP 15 countries/s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf/

The final ranking of the countries shows the swapping of some places compared to previous years since Finland became the 1st moving up from its 5th position last year. Locals say that the best thing about their country is the proximity of nature, public safety, childcare facilities, good education and the free health care system. Norway and Denmark follow Finland, but Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New-Zealand, Sweden and Australia are also among the TOP 10 countries.

Hungary became the 69th happiest country out of the 156, which means that it is in the middle race on the list.

/s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf/

Changes in the levels of happiness

The report, available here, also focused on the changes seen in the levels of happiness. Out of the 141 countries with data from 2008-2010 and 2015-2017, significant changes have been experienced in 114. These were both improvements and declines comparing the results of previous years. On this list, Hungary became the 9th country showing the most development with an increase of +0.810 on a 10-point scale. This is not too bad if we consider that the greatest improvement; that of Togo was +1.191.

/s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf/

Health problems

Another critical aspect measured in the participant countries is the rate of obesity, a global epidemic. America is still the leading country where 38.2% of the population is affected by this health problem. Mexico is at 2nd place, but obesity is an urgent problem in Canada, the UK, Australia and New-Zealand as well.

Hungary cannot be proud either since based on its 2015 results, 30% of the total population, a little bit more women than men, are obese. These results are saddening since the neighbouring countries have far better results.

The rate of obesity/s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf/

Acceptance of immigrants

Finally, a very educational issue, the tolerance and acceptance of immigrants, is brought to light in the report. Since the migrant crisis starting in 2015, the question of welcoming immigrants or not has stirred controversy in several countries. It was asked from those interviewed whether they judge the following things good or bad:

• Immigrants living in their country
• An immigrant becoming their neighbour
• An immigrant marrying one of their close relatives.

Surprising data was born. Among the most accepting countries are Iceland and New Zealand, but Western Europe, North America and Oceania were also welcoming nations.

However, the least accepting countries were mainly from Eastern and Southeastern Europe which the report explains with the fact that they have been personally affected by the migration crisis.

Hungary itself had a 1.69 score on this issue which is very low among the participant countries.

Tolerance towards immigrants/s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf/

All in all, promising and saddening results are both revealed in the report concerning Hungary, but we hope that the growing tendency of Hungarians’ general happiness will further improve in the future and some changes can be achieved in other domains as well.

Source: infostart.hu; worldhappiness.report