India ranks 118th in World Happiness Report; researcher questions methodology-OxBig News Network

On Thursday, the United Nations released the World Happiness Report 2025 to mark the International Day of Happiness, placing India at the 118th position among 147 countries. While India showed an improvement from last year’s 126th rank, it still lags behind several conflict-affected nations, including Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Venezuela.

For the eighth consecutive year, Finland retained its title as the world’s happiest country, continuing its dominance in the rankings. The report, which assesses quality of life based on social support, GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption perceptions, highlighted that India’s score improved to 4.389 this year. However, factors like generosity and perceptions of corruption continued to affect the country’s overall ranking negatively.

While the report reflects an improvement in India’s happiness index, Professor Rajesh Pillania, a leading happiness researcher, questioned the ranking methodology. He argued that happiness is a subjective concept that varies across cultures.

“I don’t agree with the lower ranking of India in the World Happiness Reports. Happiness is self-reported, making it prone to subjectivity and bias. The idea of happiness differs between collectivist and individualist societies,” he said in a video statement.

According to Prof Pillania, India’s ranking may not accurately reflect its true happiness levels. He pointed out that India’s strong social relationships — a key factor in happiness — are not fully captured in such global reports.

“The longest study on happiness, conducted by Harvard, found that relationships are the most important factor in happiness. In India, family and community bonds remain strong, which suggests that our actual happiness levels might be higher than what the report shows,” he added.