Israel is ranked the world’s ninth happiest country in the annual World Happiness Report, coming just one point under Norway and beating out New Zealand.
Israel has been climbing through the happiness rankings in the past two years, from 14th in 2020 and 11th last year.
Like last year, COVID-19 played a major role in this report, as the world continues to grapple with how the global pandemic disrupted and upended society in all sectors.
Overall, Nordic countries once again dominated the top slots. Finland topped the list as the world’s happiest country for the fifth year in a row.
In second place was Denmark, followed by Iceland. Switzerland came in fourth followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg, with the Nordic states of Sweden and Norway following in seventh and eighth place.At the bottom of the list was Afghanistan, where it was last year.
Factors taken into account include GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
This is the 10th anniversary of the release of the World Happiness Report, a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.