Finland Grade 7+

It’s March 18, 2022, in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Many people around the city – alone or in groups in malls, parks, and bars – stare at phones or laptops. Anticipation dances in the air.

Then comes the news.

The 2022 UN-sponsored World Happiness Report is announced.

Finland has once again been named the World’s Happiest Country!

The report goes viral. Finland has been crowned the happiest country in the world for the fifth year in a row. Denmark, the second country on the list, lags far behind in total points.

Finns cheer, hug, raise toasts. But there are no fireworks, noisy parades, crowds in the streets. Reserved by nature, Finns don’t flaunt their happiness. They don’t draw attention to their good fortune.

Who has happiness, must hide it, says an old Finnish saying. Finns don’t want to make others feel bad if those people are unhappy. Finnish culture values modesty, humility, and consideration for others.

The Finns are happy despite their country’s harsh climate. It has long, dark winters with frigid temperatures. Lack of sunlight during winter is supposed to lead people to sadness and loneliness. Cold weather is supposed to make people tired and sluggish. Yet, none of those factors seem to affect Finnish happiness.

So, what is Finland’s secret?

Finland sleeps on a deep happiness well, powered mainly by a strong sense of community. Its strong democratic institutions guarantee freedom of speech and ensure that public money does not fall into the pockets of a few. Finland has a very high standard of living, with free healthcare and education and with very low rates of crime and corruption.

And Finns have a positive outlook on life. They participate in ice-skating, snowmobiling, skiing, dog mushing, and even floating among ice floes in winter, and jogging, swimming, and football (soccer) in summer, among many other sports.

Or maybe because Santa Claus and his reindeer, huskies, and elves make their home in Rovaniemi, a town up north, in Lapland.

Or maybe because they make habitual use of sauna and massage. It is not uncommon for people to take saunas several times a week. There’s a sauna in almost every Finnish home: over three million saunas, more than any other country in the world. The saunas are places not only to unwind but also to socialize and heal.

But times have not always been easy for the Finns. It’s not just the winter weather and darkness that should leave them saddened and listless. They have had a history of terrible hardship. A few hundred years ago, for example, a third of all Finns starved to death in a famine. Following that was a plague that killed huge numbers.

Then, in the 1800s, Russia twice conquered the Finns. A third of all Finnish males were murdered, enslaved and sent to be worked to death in Russian mines, or died from starvation. Another famine almost immediately followed; 15 percent of all Finns died.

The Russians attacked again – twice – during World War II. The Finns also had to fight the Germans. The Finns, though vastly outnumbered and outgunned, held out for months. In fact, Simo Häyhä, a Finnish farmer, usually known by his nickname, The White Death, became the most successful sniper in history.  Eventually, Russia wore Finland down. Finland had to give up some land and pay the Soviets 5.5 billion dollars*, but the Finns retained their independence.

But that was then, and this is now. Finland is still an independent democracy. In 2015, it ranked first in World Human Capital – an index that measures employee knowledge, skills, good health, and education – its newspapers are among the best in the world, and from 2011 to 2016 it was ranked the most stable country on the planet.

Not bad for a country with a population of only 5.6 million!

—*in 2020 dollars