Cabinet Admits Mistake in Taiwan's Happiness Ranking|台灣是亞洲最幸福國家? 政院坦承搞錯了

Taiwan may not be as competitive, but is Taiwan the happiest country in Asia? Well, not really. The Executive Yuen released a statement the other day, saying Taiwan ranks no.1 among all Asian countries in terms of happiness, citing the results from the UN's latest World Happiness Report. However, several lawmakers have pointed out that the United Arab Emirates and Israel, both located in Western Asia and rank higher than Taiwan. Many Taiwanese also tend to disagree with the report.


According to the 2018 World Happiness Reported released by the United Nations in March, among 156 countries around the world, four Northern European countries, including Finland and Norway, top the list as the happiest nations. Taiwan ranks 26th on the list, and is higher than Japan, South Korea, and China. The Cabinet released a statement that stressed that Taiwan ranks no.1 among all Asian countries in terms of happiness, and that it has moved up 7 places compared to last year. However, the statement has been criticized by lawmakers for false information.

When we unfold the world map and really take a close look… Just like the legislator said, we were still in the process of reviewing the statement this morning.

Cabinet Secretary General Chuo Rung-tai has admitted that the Cabinet has made mistakes in its statement, because both Israel and the United Arab Emirates are in Western Asia and they are placed higher than Taiwan on the UN's list. Therefore, Taiwan is technically the highest on the list among East Asian nations. On the other hand, members of the public often tend to disagree with the Cabinet's optimistic outlook.

I think the Cabinet's report (on average salary) is plain wrong. I don't trust it at all. Taiwan has long suffered a low wage issue, and the Cabinet stated that we make more than NT$ 50,000 per month. I'm sorry, the Cabinet should hand over that NT$30,000 that we are not making.

Member of the public question the standard by which the UN calculated the level of happiness of nations on the list. There have been reports that, beginning in 2012, the UN calculated the level of happiness based on the self-evaluation provided by citizens of each country, instead of using real, hard data. The UN's report is calculated based on how each nation's citizens feel about their economy, health, social freedom and government corruption and it highly subjective.

The results depend heavily on how each index is weighed, and the choice is highly subjective. As different indices are given different in the calculation, the results could see large variations. I personally think that the results don't quite reflect reality.

Professor Lin Tzu-chia from the National Chengchi University believes that the UN's report could favor social freedom over other factors. On the one hand, Taiwan's economic growth has fallen behind that of China and South Korea, however Taiwan has low suicide and unemployment rate, these factors might have been heavily weighted in the calculation. The professor said that the report has little significance since it is not based on real statistics. Meanwhile, Taiwan is listed as a province of China in the report, Hsu Yung-ming has asked the Cabinet to voice their protest on the issue.