Is the world happiness report informative?

The eighth World Happiness Report (2020) ranked Finland number 1. 

The happiness score is described as a ladder, where zero is not happy at all and as you climb up, 10 is maximum happiness, hence the ladder score. Finland is no. 1 with a score of 7.8087. 

The happiness index is a subjective measure of well-being, the report says. When Professor Sachs talks about it he says it is supposed to measure satisfaction. Say, utility in economics jargon. In neoclassical economics, utility is a function of consumption of goods and services and leisure. Leisure is time spent not working in market activity and it is assumed to be a normal good. 

To measure happiness, they conduct a survey. Then they take a national average response to a question, e.g., they ask 1000 people a question, record the answers and take the average.There are a number of variables that make this happiness ladder score. They include, not surprisingly, real GDP per capita. Additionally, it includes health life expectancy at birth; social support - i.e.,having someone to rely on in times of need or trouble; freedom to make choices, where people are asked whether he or she is satisfied or dissatisfied; generosity - i.e., they ask, "have you donated money to charity in the last month?" take the average response, then run a regression of this average measure on GDP per capita. Generosity is the residuals of this regression; corruption perception, is the national average of the response to this question "is corruption widespread in government and businesses, or not?"

They use regression analysis to measure how much each of these variables explains of the happiness score! The reported data suggest that only three variables could actually explain most of the happiness ladder score. The most significant explanatory variable is not surprisingly, real GDP per capita, followed by social support, and health life expectancy at birth. The rest do not seem to have enough variations to explain the variation of the ladder score. In addition, they have something called dystopia residual, dystopia happiness, which I could not find its definition so I Googled it. Google says, "it is the score of a hypothetical country that has a lower rank than the lowest ranking country in the report, plus the residual of each country. This happened to have a lot of explanatory power! 

Having briefly explained this subjective well-being index, which is supposed to inform policymakers, and us, about the well-being of every country, now I want to show you the statistics for Finland, the No.1 ranking country and New Zealand, the No.8 ranking country.The differences are small in magnitude, but statistically significant (I tested that). Finland's score is 7.8087 and NZ score is 7.2996. The first two columns in the graph below are the country ladder scores, the rest of the columns are the amounts of the ladder score that are explained by the factors mentioned above. 

So what makes the Fins happier than the Kiwis.The populations are almost the same size. COVID-19 killed more than 600 Fins, but only 25 died in NZ. NZ government and businesses are the least corrupted in the world according to the corruption perception index 2020; it ranked no.1 and Finland No.3. Both countries are democratic and freedom is relatively similar. Are the Fins more generous than Kiwis? 

So if log real GDP per capita explains more of the happiness index than any other variable, why calculate this index? 

That's not all. Going through the list show more strange results. 

Would anyone believe that Iraq is a happier and a better place to live than Jordan? 

Historically, Iraqis, unlike the Syrians and Lebanese, are not known for migration. However, they have been migrating all over the world and to Jordan in particular since the American invasion in 2003. The wars devastated Iraq (see Wikipedia). Millions were displaced. Millions of women lost their husbands and have no jobs, income, and social benefits. There are  millions of homeless children, and millions are disabled persons. Millions lost family members, properties, income, and more. The society has been torn apart by violence. Furthermore, Iraq is more corrupt today according to the corruption perception index than ever. It is environmentally unsafe. Its health and education systems are dysfunctional, and the list goes on. I believe that the Iraqis abroad are also unhappy because the majority believe that they lost their country to terrorists and foreign powers. So what do we make of this ranking?    

Finally, who would believe that Libya, another war torn country, is a happier and a better place to live than Malaysia,Turkey, China, and Morocco? None of these countries has been in war let alone a continuous devastating war for decades.

I could go through the list and examine it country by country, but there is no point. I have some serious doubts about this statistic.I do not think that it is more informative than simply looking at real GDP per capita. Yet, many governments have adopted similar methodology as a guide for policy rather than focusing on productivity. I think tat there is more politics in this than economics behind it.