MALAYSIA plunged 45 spots to rank the 80th happiest country in the world, trailing far behind our Southeast Asian neighbours Singapore and Thailand, according to the 2019 World Happiness Report (WHR 2019).

The survey, conducted over a three-year period from 2016-2018, saw people rating their happiness on the aspects of GDP per capita, well-being, income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support, corruption level, and generosity.

Malaysians were the least happy with the country’s social support (97) and corruption (137), while people were seen to be adequately happy in areas such as freedom (36) and health life expectancy (59).

Malaysia ranked 35th in the 2018 survey, and placed second in the region just after Singapore.

However, the country emerged as among the 20 biggest losers in this year’s survey of 156 countries.

“Among the 20 largest losers, all of which show ladder reductions exceeding about 0.5 points, seven are in the Middle East and North Africa, six in Sub-Saharan Africa, three in Western Europe, with the remaining significant losers being Venezuela, India, Malaysia, and Ukraine,” the report noted.

The 2019 report found that Malaysia lost 0.679 points in changes of happiness levels from the WHR 2009 Report a decade ago, which was conducted in the timeframe between the 2005-2008.

The report is produced by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in partnership with the Ernesto Illy Foundation.

In Southeast Asia, Singaporeans retained their top spot as the happiest people in the region at 34th place, while Thailand ranked 52nd and the Philippines 69th.

Behind Malaysia were Indonesia (92), Vietnam(94), Laos(105), Cambodia (109), and Myanmar (131).

Scandinavian states took the crown as the happiest countries in the world, with Finland taking the top spot followed by Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.  The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, and Austria completed the top 10 list.

The bottom 10 of the ranking saw a mixture of African, South Asian, and Middle Eastern countries.

South Sudan appeared as the least happy country at 156. – March 21, 2019.