Taiwan ranked 27th globally in this year’s World Happiness Report released today, coming first in East Asia, surpassing Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China.
The report, which was topped by Finland, was released by the University of Oxford's Wellbeing Research Centre and done in partnership with the analytics firm Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
All countries in the report are ranked according to self-assessed life evaluations averaged from 2022 to last year.
Photo: Taipei Times
Country rankings were based on answers provided by people from more than 140 countries asked to rate their own lives on a zero to 10 scale, with 10 representing their best possible life.
Taiwan ranked 27th globally with a score of 6.669, up from 31st in last year’s report.
This made it the third-happiest place in Asia, following Israel at No. 8 with a score of 7.234 and the United Arab Emirates at No. 21 with a score of 6.759.
Researchers in the report said that beyond health and wealth, some factors that influence happiness sound deceptively simple: sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support and household size.
Believing in the kindness of others is also much more closely tied to happiness than previously thought, according to the latest findings.
As an example, the report suggests that people who believe that others are willing to return their lost wallet is a strong predictor of the overall happiness of a population.
In Taiwan, 56.6 percent helped a stranger, while 41.2 percent donated, ranking 86th and 34th respectively.
Only 15.2 percent volunteered, ranking 106th globally in this aspect.
In general, Taiwan was globally ranked 33rd and 34th in terms of social support and generosity respectively.
Overall, researchers said global evidence on the perceived and actual return of lost wallets shows that people are much too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities compared to reality — actual rates of wallet return are about twice as high as people expect.
Nordic nations ranked among the top for expected and actual return of lost wallets, the study found.
Finland was named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Sweden.
When it comes to decreasing happiness — or growing unhappiness — the US dropped to its lowest-ever position at 24, having previously peaked at 11th place in 2012.
The report states that the number of people dining alone in the US has increased by 53 percent over the past two decades.
Afghanistan again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world, with Afghan women saying their lives are especially difficult.
In a concerning development, the study said 19 percent of young adults across the world reported in 2023 that they had no one they could count on for social support.
That is a 39 percent increase compared to 2006.
Experts in economics, psychology and sociology sought to explain the variations across countries and over time using factors such as GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
RSS