The World Happiness Report + Japan's ranking

The results of the annual World Happiness Report came out this week, and part of the research focused on life evaluations by country. As is often the case, Nordic countries dominated the list, with Finland, Denmark, and Iceland coming in first, second, and third respectively for happiness. My home country of Australia came in 10th on the list – not too shabby – but it took a bit more scrolling to find Japan at 51st on the list.

Pic Credit: Madison Oren/Unsplash

There are several components that make up the rankings: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption–and honestly, I think Japan does great on a lot of these metrics, so it came as a bit of a surprise.

A particularly sad part of the list to me was the Happiness Metric for those aged under 30 years – Japan came in at 73rd on the list for that component. The old (classed as those 60+) fared better, coming in at 36th.

How do you feel, happiness-wise, living here in Japan as opposed to your country of origin? Are there any specific reasons why you think it's harder here for younger people to feel happy, as opposed to older folks?