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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Daily Oz. Another week

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Speaker 1: has rolled around. It is the twenty first of March.

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Speaker 1: I'm joined today by Maria Laddis. Today's Deep Dive, We're

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about Happiness, an organization that sat

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Speaker 1: down and ranked the world's happiest and most unhappy countries.

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Speaker 1: We're going to discuss the findings. Mariah kick us off.

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Speaker 1: What was a big story from the weekend.

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Speaker 2: Yesterday the federal government announced additional support for Ukraine amid

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Speaker 2: Russia's ongoing invasion of the nation. The support includes a

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Speaker 2: twenty one million dollar package of military assistance and equipment,

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Speaker 2: thirty million dollars in humanitarian assistance, and a donation of

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Speaker 2: seventy thousand tons of thermal coal. Humanitarian visas for Ukrainians

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Speaker 2: who flee the country will also be introduced, allowing individuals

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Speaker 2: to work, study and access medicare in Australia for three years.

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Speaker 1: Two Domestic politics now and following a defeat in South

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Speaker 1: Australia's state election over the weekend, outgoing Premier Stephen Marshall

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Speaker 1: has announced he is stepping down as leader of the

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Speaker 1: Liberal Party. Marshall released a statement yesterday and he said

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Speaker 1: Whilst I am disappointed by the election outcome, I take

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Speaker 1: full responsibility for the result and accept the will of

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Speaker 1: the people. Despite his resignation, Marshall will remain in politics

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Speaker 1: representing the people of Dunstan.

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Speaker 2: Hillsong's interim global Pastor Phil Dooley has apologized to two

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Speaker 2: individuals who have made complaints against the church's founder, Brian Houston.

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Speaker 2: Dooley said, I want to say we are sorry for

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Speaker 2: anyone who has been a victim of any form of harassment.

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Speaker 2: Hillsong's board confirmed it had been dealing with two complaints

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Speaker 2: made against Pastor Brian over the last ten years.

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Speaker 1: And today's good news comes from the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: Australian Olympic moguls champion Jakara Anthony has become Australia's most

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Speaker 1: successful winter sports athlete in a single season after winning

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Speaker 1: a twelfth medal over the weekend in France. Anthony claimed

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Speaker 1: two silver medals at the women's Moguls World Cup Final,

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Speaker 1: breaking the Australian record and becoming the Queen of the slopes.

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Speaker 2: The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network has released a

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Speaker 2: report called the World Happiness Report, and as the title says,

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Speaker 2: it looks like happiness around the world and ranks most

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Speaker 2: countries dependent on how happy they are. If you're confused

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Speaker 2: on how that is done, and I know I was

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Speaker 2: when I first heard about this, We're going to try

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Speaker 2: and break this down on how they figured it out.

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Speaker 2: The results of the report found that Finland topped the charts,

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Speaker 2: being labeled the happiest nation in the world for a

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Speaker 2: fifth year in a row. The report also revealed the

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Speaker 2: least happiest countries in the world, and there is a

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Speaker 2: common theme that binds them all. Now, Sam, before we

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Speaker 2: get into where some of the countries are ranked, how

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Speaker 2: does one measure the happiness of a country?

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Speaker 1: This was the golden question for us in preparing for

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Super interesting idea that you can kind of

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Speaker 1: take us snapshot of a nation and try and pop

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Speaker 1: out a number that indicates how happy the people are.

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Speaker 1: But here's how the report does it. They use six

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Speaker 1: key indicators to measure happiness, and the indicators range from

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Speaker 1: objective criteria, so numbers figures such as GDP, which is

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Speaker 1: the gross domestic product and the total value of all

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Speaker 1: goods and services produced within the country. So I think

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Speaker 1: they're they're trying to indicate kind of wealth, but also

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Speaker 1: subjective criteria, and that can be things like how generous

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Speaker 1: people in the country are. So those six criteria are

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Speaker 1: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, that's one

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Speaker 1: of the ones that can be really accurately measured. Then

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Speaker 1: the ones that can't be generosity, freedom, and perceptions of corruption.

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Speaker 1: They then have created a country called Dystopia, and Dystopia

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Speaker 1: takes the worst results from each of those categories and

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Speaker 1: makes a made up country, and the country is then

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Speaker 1: compared to Dystopia to pop out an index number. They

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Speaker 1: tend to talk to sample sizes of about one thousand

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Speaker 1: to three thousand people per country to gather the data,

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Speaker 1: and for some of those more subjective indicators, people are

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Speaker 1: surveyed with questionnaires like you'd get online, and that's how

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Speaker 1: they gather the information. They did this over a three

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Speaker 1: year period and then take the averages of the three

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Speaker 1: years and pop out a number.

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Speaker 2: Right, So then how did countries go? Where were they ranked?

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Speaker 1: So before we jump into the list, I think it's

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Speaker 1: important to note, as the authors of the report did,

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Speaker 1: that this report was all researched before Russia's invasion in Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: so just don't think about that particular ongoing news story

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Speaker 1: while you're reading these results. So the happiest countries in

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Speaker 1: the world, unsurprisingly, are all from Northern Europe Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland,

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Speaker 1: and the Netherlands. So let's talk about Finland here for

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Speaker 1: a second. Researchers noted that the nation was ahead of

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Speaker 1: every other country by a significant margin, so there is

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Speaker 1: no doubt that Finland is the happiest country. But if

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Speaker 1: we look at increases in well being from the last

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Speaker 1: time these results were gathered, we see countries like Bulgaria,

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Speaker 1: Romania and Serbia take quite a big jump. On the

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Speaker 1: other side of the list. Right down the bottom, the

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Speaker 1: most unhappy countries were Afghanistan, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Botswana.

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan was the bottom of the table by quite away

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Speaker 1: as well, and they've remained in the same position from

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Speaker 1: the last time these results were released. And they've had

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Speaker 1: a massive twelve months, as I'm sure you remember, with

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Speaker 1: the Taliban returning to power and US troops leaving the nation.

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Speaker 2: So this report has been going on for quite a

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Speaker 2: while ten years to be exact, but this year's data

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Speaker 2: collection was particularly interesting. Can you take me through why.

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Speaker 1: So they're stuck with all these key indicators that have

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Speaker 1: given them some really strong results, and they've been able

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Speaker 1: to compare the increases and decreases because they've been doing

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Speaker 1: this same methodology for a few years. The new flavor

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Speaker 1: this year was social media data being used to compare

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Speaker 1: people's emotions, particularly in relation to the COVID nineteen pandemic.

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Speaker 1: The way they did this was counting emotional words mainly

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, and also using AI and machine learning to

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Speaker 1: try and engage the sentiment in a country. So with

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Speaker 1: these particular tools of social media analysis, the report found

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Speaker 1: there were strong increases in anxiety and sadness, and that's

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Speaker 1: not surprising. It was a pretty dire couple of years

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Speaker 1: for all of us during the pandemic. But they did

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Speaker 1: note a fall in feelings of anger, which I found

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Speaker 1: quite interesting.

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Speaker 2: Bringing it back home, where did Australia rank in this table?

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Speaker 1: Australia held firm. We are still sitting in twelfth spot,

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Speaker 1: just above Ireland and just below Austria. Australia did beat

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Speaker 1: out Germany, Canada, the US and the UK, so not

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Speaker 1: a bad representation of Australia's happiness. But we've certainly got

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Speaker 1: a little bit to go before we crack the Northern

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Speaker 1: European top of the table.

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Speaker 2: And then for the countries that were at the bottom

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Speaker 2: of the list, were there any key patterns that were

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Speaker 2: noticed throughout the research?

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Speaker 1: So the authors of the report very clearly said that

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Speaker 1: conflict and extreme poverty were the common factors down the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the list, not just in the bottom five,

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Speaker 1: but the kind of twenty or so above that we saw,

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Speaker 1: you know, quite devastating results that people in Afghanistan rated

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Speaker 1: their quality of life at an average of two point

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Speaker 1: four out of ten. The authors of the report said

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Speaker 1: this was a stark reminder of the material and immaterial

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Speaker 1: damage that war does to its many victims.

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Speaker 2: And now, to sort of look from a different perspective,

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Speaker 2: have there been any critiques of the report, considering it

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Speaker 2: has been going on for about ten years now.

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Speaker 1: I think the main critique online is basically the sentiment

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Speaker 1: that it's really hard to measure happiness, that on one

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Speaker 1: day to the other we could be feeling particularly happy

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Speaker 1: or unhappy, and if we're relying on survey data to

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Speaker 1: give an indication of a whole nation's happiness, we have

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Speaker 1: to take this fragility in the data into account. I

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Speaker 1: think a really interesting critique is around cultural differences that

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Speaker 1: in some parts of the world, reflecting on one's success

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Speaker 1: and almost boasting about one's success and good fortune is

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Speaker 1: frowned upon, and there's an idea that that could play

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Speaker 1: into the way that people self report on their own

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Speaker 1: state of life. Then the last one is getting a

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Speaker 1: bit psychological and philosophical. I feel like I'm in a

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Speaker 1: university psychology lecture, but that's about memories. So you know,

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Speaker 1: how we're feeling on the particular day that we were

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Speaker 1: asked about whether we were happy might not be representative

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Speaker 1: of how we've been over the last twelve months. So

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Speaker 1: some interesting flaws in the data there. Nonetheless, there are

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Speaker 1: some really clear quantitative indicators like life expectancy and GDP

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Speaker 1: that can give us an indication of which countries are

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Speaker 1: doing well.

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Speaker 2: I want to focus again on the clear trends within

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Speaker 2: the report, particularly around the more possibly negative emotions like stress, worry,

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Speaker 2: and sadness, you know, not necessarily looking at happiness. What

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Speaker 2: did the report say about those types of emotions.

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Speaker 1: So these results were gathered from that social media listening

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Speaker 1: piece that we talked about before, but also from the

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Speaker 1: survey results from across the world, and what their report

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Speaker 1: found was that on average, the world is experiencing a

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Speaker 1: long term, moderate upward trend in stress, worry and sadness

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Speaker 1: and a decline in the enjoyment of life. And that

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Speaker 1: has to do with the COVID nineteen pandemic undoubtedly, and

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Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see how the results move over

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Speaker 1: the next few years. However, now it seems like we've

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Speaker 1: got a whole lot more to worry about in terms

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Speaker 1: of new variants, but also a potential more global conflict.

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Speaker 1: What was interesting though from the report was that there

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Speaker 1: was one particular sentiment that was on the up and

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Speaker 1: that was kindness. And I think this is a really

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Speaker 1: important point to drive home for everybody listening. On a

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Speaker 1: Monday morning, helping strangers, volunteering and donations were up across

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Speaker 1: the world. Sometimes they were up by twenty five from

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Speaker 1: the last time those numbers were taken, and this surge

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Speaker 1: of benevolence is incredible to realize. The reports founding editors

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Speaker 1: said that in terms of us helping strangers, it provides

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Speaker 1: powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need,

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Speaker 1: creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, for

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Speaker 1: the people receiving the happiness, gestures good examples for others

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Speaker 1: to follow, and better lives for themselves. And what that

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Speaker 1: really shows me is that whilst certain parts of the

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Speaker 1: world clearly are happy, one thing that the world seems

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Speaker 1: to have developed over the last couple of years is empathy,

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Speaker 1: and that is a fascinating concept. I didn't think we'd

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Speaker 1: be able to quantify that increase in empathy, but it

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Speaker 1: seems that the World Happiness Body has done so.

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Speaker 2: There were some super interesting findings in there, Sam, and

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Speaker 2: we can only hope that global happiness will continue to

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Speaker 2: go up.

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Speaker 1: That is all we have time for today on the

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Speaker 1: Daily Oz. Thank you all for listening so much. If

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Speaker 1: you enjoyed this podcast, we would love you to leave

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Speaker 1: a review on Spotify or Apple. You can do that

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Speaker 1: by clicking the little five star button up the top.

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Speaker 1: Until then, you can catch up with us on Instagram

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Speaker 1: throughout the day at the dally Os It's where over

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Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty thousand Australians get their news. We'll

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Speaker 1: see there