The coronavirus brought a year of fear, anxiety and lockdown yet Cyprus managed to rise by 10 places in the annual 2021 World Happiness Report produced by the U.N Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Cyprus ranked 39th last year from 49th in 2019 in the report which ranks 149 countries based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and the opinions of residents.
Released on March 20 to mark U.N. International Day of Happiness the surveys ask respondents to indicate on a 1-10 scale how much social support they feel they have if something goes wrong.
Also, respondents are asked on their freedom to make their own life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.
Larnaca-based psychiatrist Kyriakos Veresies, founder of the School of Happiness and the Group of Friends of Epicurean Philosophy “The Garden of Solution” has recently presented the report in detail.
He told Phileleftheros in an interview that it was impressive that the pandemic has not crushed people’s spirits. And that the top 10 countries in 2019 maintained that place in 2020.
These are Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Austria. It was the fourth consecutive year that Finland came out on top.
