One of the most important indicators of a thriving economy and healthy society is that the people living in the country report high levels of happiness, life satisfaction and wellbeing.
The World Happiness Report has identified six variables that explain many of the differences between countries. For three of the six variables, the UK and Finland are very similar: GDP per capita, social support and healthy life expectancy at birth. For one variable, generosity, the UK does better than Finland.
There are two variables that seem to explain the gap between Finland and the UK. One is that in Finland, people are more likely to believe that they have freedom to make life choices (that, is high levels of agency) and the other is that perceptions of corruption are much greater in the UK than in Finland.
To put that into perspective, if an independent Scotland had the expected higher levels of agency and the powers to tackle corruption, we are likely to achieve life satisfaction levels as high as Finland, the ‘happiest country in the world’.