Misleading: China is the "Happiest Country in the World"
The Claim
China is the happiest country in the world.
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Emerging story
Ispos is a French marketing company that surveys different countries. Among many other surveys, they also conduct a world happiness survey. In 2020, they listed China as the happiest country in the world.
This came as a shock to some and a delight to others, and the claim soon went viral on social media.
Misbar’s Analysis
There are a few problems with the survey as well as the conclusion people have come to from viewing the survey. The survey itself is somewhat small. Ispos surveyed 27 countries and 19,516 individuals. Considering that there are billions of people living in these countries, the survey size just isn’t big enough to be accurate. Ispos also uses technology-based polling; many people do not have access to the internet or phonelines. In China, two out of five people don’t have access to the internet.
There are other global happiness surveys besides Ispos. The World Happiness Report, conducted by Gallop World Poll, reported that Finland topped the list along with other Scandinavian countries. After extensive research, they found that overall-city happiness directly correlates to overall-country happiness. In this survey, China didn’t even make it in the top twenty of happiest countries.
FiveThirtyEight, owned by ABC, rates Gallop at a higher level of accuracy than Ispos.
