India has been ranked among the lowest out of a total 137 countries.
War-torn Ukraine is placed at 92, crisis-ridden countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been ranked 112 and 108, respectively.
“The much-debated rankings seem to have stuck to a rather generous and convenient middle path, overlooking persistent issues prevailing in many better ranked nations, from gun-related violence unfolding from schools to streets; civil unrest on pension and jobs fronts; constant military dictatorship making freedom a scarce commodity for common citizens,” said the State Bank of India’s Economic Research Department’s report, SBI Ecowrap.
‘Happiness is subjective’
The SBI report further said that happiness is a subjective thing to define.
“Measuring happiness across the world through the same lens could only mean every country and its citizens feel happy the same way and in same proportion, which is highly unlikely as evolution has given a distinct aura to distinct geographies,” it stated.
“The 2023 happiness index looks to be at best a statistical fallacy in search of an illusory Utopian society.” it added. The World Happiness Report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by the Gallup World Poll data.
An alternative model
The SBI report further said that such oversights “nudge us to explore the possibility of creating an alternative model, one more cohesively conjoined with dependable tenets of financial and productivity-based metrics while giving enough room to emerging facets like work-life balance”
“The common measures of happiness for all countries may not be the right indicators to generate happiness indications. There are always country-specific parameters in each domain of social science and development, and happiness measurement can not be an exception to that. Based on country-specific analysis of parameters of Happiness such as Financial Happiness, Happiness related to work access and productivity, Mental Happiness, Happiness related to work life balance, we estimate India at 48th position in terms of Happiness and we summarily dismiss the results of India’s 126th rank in World Happiness Index as a measure of Happiness,” the SBI report said.
The SBI report further noted that the factor most closely related to higher level of happiness is social relationships, “which in India are much broadened and altruistic than any other country in the world”.
While admitting its limitation in accessing global survey data, the SBI report stated that it has developed a happiness index more suitable to “Indian way of life”.