How happy are Italians?

This week, the UN released its annual World Happiness Report for 2024 and Italy came in at a distinctly average 41st out of 143 countries. In fact, Italy had dropped ten places since last year’s poll, suggesting that Italians are becoming unhappier.

These findings may come as a surprise to anyone who visits Italy regularly or who has moved here to enjoy a sunnier, more relaxed (and much cheaper) way of life. Especially when you consider that Italy placed far below the UK (20th) – where we’re known for things like self-deprecation and taking pride in our misery – and the US (23rd), where friends tell me they fear gun violence and worsening political polarisation.

So how could Italy, the land of la dolce vita famed for art, romance, and the relishing of life’s simple pleasures, rank below the US, the UK, and its European neighbours? The report’s authors don’t delve into possible explanations, but they do tell us that the self-reported happiness scores vary greatly by generation, among other things.

A look at the categories used to rank a country’s quality of life doesn’t shed much light: life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity, income and perception of corruption. Italy fares consistently badly on the last two, but well on the first two, and it’s not clear how “freedom and generosity” are measured – though I know many would describe Italians as generous to a fault.

Of course, anyone who spends much time here knows that Italy has its dark side, and that life here is full of contrasts, conflicts and apparent contradictions. As such, attempts to define Italy or Italians as being one thing or another are usually futile.

So is Italy a happy country? As with so many questions about Italy, the short answer is that it depends – or, as Italians often say, dipende da chi trovi (it depends on who you ask). Italy’s mediocre ranking in the poll no doubt reflects this ambiguity.

Under the (church’s) influence

In one of my favourite articles on The Local Italy this week, we came up against another of those Italian contradictions when we looked at whether it’s true that Italy is “overwhelmingly Catholic” or a “majority Catholic” country – it’s often described as such in international news reports, but can that be an accurate way to label a secular constitutional republic?

Again, the answer isn’t that clear cut. The legislation may say Italy is secular, but socially and culturally it’s very much a Catholic country.

As our reporter Jessica Lionnel writes: “There are rare occasions when the two sides match up, such as with public blasphemy laws. Perhaps this apparent contradiction isn’t surprising when we consider that the Vatican City towers over and sits within the beating heart of Rome.”

Meloni makes headlines in the US

If you’ve looked at Italian social media this week, no doubt you’ve spotted the pictures of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hiding under her jacket in parliament.

What was that all about? Meloni had jokingly told opposition lawmakers in the chamber that she would hide her face because “you guys look nervous”. The photos attracted little attention in Italy at first; Italian reports were more interested in how Meloni had been made to apologise for addressing the opposition as “guys” (or ragazzi).

That was, until the Wall Street Journal published the photo of Meloni covering herself with her jacket on its front page on Thursday.

Meloni con la testa nella giacca sul WSJ. La premier: «Ho coperto volto con ironia, non volevo intimorire» https://t.co/q8xgal0ZKZ pic.twitter.com/TeBTp0VrCQ

— IlSole24ORE (@sole24ore) March 22, 2024

“Meloni hiding in her jacket becomes front page news in the Wall Street Journal” was the headline in La Repubblica on Thursday. All of Italy’s major newspapers ran similar stories, while Italian social media lit up with memes. Meloni responded to the furore by explaining that she was “being ironic” in the photo.

One of the curiosities of the Italian press is how it excitedly reports headlines about Italy in US and UK media outlets, and the great importance placed on how Italy is perceived in these countries. It seems as though Italian media has an inferiority complex – though you might equally say that some international reporting on Italy takes a distinctly superior tone.

There was definite embarrassment in Italy at Meloni’s offbeat behaviour being picked up on abroad. Understandable, maybe. But it’s hard to imagine US newspapers concerning themselves with what Italians might think of Joe Biden.