Maybe it was the strong peso, the post-Covid return to normality, or, perhaps, the president’s fondness for hugging criminals.
Whatever the reason, Mexico is a happier nation than a year ago, according to the World Happiness Report.
The rankings for 2022, published last week by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, saw Mexico jump ten places, from 46th to 36th.
This country is still not the happiest in Latin American, however. That accolade goes to Costa Rica, occupying 23rd place in the rankings. Uruguay (28th) and Chile (35th) are also placed higher than Mexico.
The happiest people in the world? The Finns, of course - for the sixth year in a row.
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Frank Martela, a philosopher and psychology researcher who studies the fundamentals of happiness, and who is also a lecturer at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, lists three key reasons why citizens of Finland are apparently so contented.
1. They don’t compare themselves to their neighbors. 2. They don’t overlook the benefits of nature. 3. They don’t break the community circle of trust.
In an article for cnbc.com, Martela highlights the high levels of trust that the Finns enjoy: A “lost wallet” experiment in 2022 tested the honesty of citizens by dropping 192 wallets in 16 cities around the world. In Helsinki, 11 out of 12 wallets were returned to the owner, he notes.
The major English-speaking nations are all grouped together in the top 20: Australia (12th), Canada (13th), Ireland (14th), the United States (15th) and the United Kingdom (19th).
Israel (4th) and New Zealand (10th) are the only non-European countries in the top ten.
Critics of the Happiness Report say criteria that one would imagine are fundamental in evaluating a country’s happiness levels seem to be given less importance. For example, how is it possible, they say, that the Nordic countries feature in the top half dozen places in the list when they have some of the highest rates of depression in the world? Although mental health is measured in the report, other factors include healthy life expectancy, earnings, GDP per capita, social support, low corruption and the freedom to make key life decisions—categories in which the Nordic countries score high grades.