Taiwan placed 27th in the world and first in Asia in this year’s World Happiness Report by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, which was published on Wednesday.
Taiwan’s score of 6.669 out of 10 put it ahead of Japan, which ranked 55th, South Korea (58th), China (68th), Mongolia (77th) and Hong Kong (88th), the report showed.
Taiwan moved up from 31st in last year’s report and overtook Singapore (34th this year) to be No. 1 in Asia.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Of the 140 countries and regions ranked by the index, Finland remained at the top for the eighth consecutive year with a score of 7.736.
Denmark was second with a score of 7.521, with Iceland (7.515), Sweden (7.345) and the Netherlands (7.306) rounding out the top five.
The rankings were based on the average scores of individuals’ self-reported well-being combined from 2022 to last year, according to the report’s Web site.
Factors including GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption were also measured to attempt to explain the variations across countries and over time, the report said.
“Belief in the kindness of others is much more closely tied to happiness than previously thought,” it said, citing studies of how often lost personal items of value are returned.
People are universally shown to be too pessimistic about their communities’ kindness than it is in reality, it said, adding that “actual rates of wallet return are around twice as high as people expect.”
“Investing in positive social connections and engaging in benevolent actions are both matched by greater happiness,” said Lara Aknin, a professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University and editor of the report.
The report is published by the center in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board, the Web site said.
The report, first published in April 2012, is released each year around March 20 to coincide with the International Day of Happiness, it said.
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