According to the annual World Happiness Report – issued every year on 20 March, the International Day of Happiness – the Czech Republic is the 18th happiest country in the world, for the third year in a row.
The report is based on joint research by the consulting company Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report’s Editorial Board. The research takes six variables into consideration to draw up the World Happiness Report and index: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption.
The yearly report is then finally built using results from the previous three years.
The Czech Republic ranks 18th for the third year in a row, ahead of the United States (23rd), Germany (24th), and Italy (41st). This is a significant improvement from the first World Happiness Report in 2012, when the Czech Republic only ranked 36th.
The Czech Republic had a higher ranking than all of its neighbours except Austria (14th); the culturally close Slovakia ranked only 45th, falling 16 places since last year. Most of the happiest countries were concentrated in Northern Europe, with Finland topping the ranking for the 7th year in a row, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden.
Further details are revealed by examining the breakdown of the results by age. Among young people (under 30), the Czech Republic ranks 10th, while among the older population, the country falls to 23rd place.
