World Happiness Report

Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report (2023).

The World Happiness Report is a publication that contains articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives,[1] which the report also correlates with various (quality of) life factors.[2] As of March 2024, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world seven times in a row.[3][4][5][6][7]

From 2024, the report is a publication of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.[8] Until then, the report was a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a global initiative of the United Nations.[9] The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. Each annual report is available to the public to download on the World Happiness Report website.[2] The editors of the 2023 report are John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara Aknin, and Shun Wang.

History[edit]

In July 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development[10] inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy. On 2 April 2012, this was followed by the first UN High Level Meeting called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,[11] which was chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan, a nation that adopted gross national happiness instead of gross domestic product as their main development indicator.[12]

The first World Happiness Report was released on 1 April 2012, as a foundational text for the UN High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,[13] drawing international attention.[14] The first report outlined the state of world happiness, causes of happiness and misery, and policy implications highlighted by case studies. In 2013, the second World Happiness Report was issued, and in 2015 the third. Since 2016, it has been issued on an annual basis on 20 March, to coincide with the UN's International Day of Happiness.[15]

Methods and philosophy[edit]

The rankings of national happiness are based on a happiness measurement survey undertaken world-wide by the polling company Gallup, Inc. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.[16] The report correlates the life evaluation results with various life factors.[2]

The life factor variables used in the reports are reflective of determinants that explain national-level differences in life evaluations across research literature. However, certain variables, such as unemployment or inequality, are not considered because comparable data is not yet available across all countries. The variables used illustrate important correlations rather than causal estimates.[16]

The use of subjective measurements of wellbeing is meant to be a bottom-up approach which emancipates respondents to evaluate their own wellbeing.[17] In this context, the value of the Cantril Ladder is the fact that a respondent can self-anchor themselves based on their perspective.[18]

In the reports, experts in fields including economics, psychology, survey analysis, and national statistics, describe how measurements of well-being can be used effectively to assess the progress of nations, and other topics. Each report is organized by chapters that delve deeper into issues relating to happiness, including mental illness, the objective benefits of happiness, the importance of ethics, policy implications, and links with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) approach to measuring subjective well-being and other international and national efforts.

WELLBYs[edit]

From 2021 the World Happiness Report has advocated for the use of WELLBYs (Well-Being-Adjusted Life-Years); it argues that QALYs only count the individual patient's health-related quality of life, and instead WELLBYs should be used. Policy-makers should aim to maximise the WELLBYs of all who are born, and also include the WELLBYs of future generations (subject to a small discount rate).[19][20][21]

Annual report topics[edit]

World Happiness Reports were issued in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 (an update), 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023.

In addition to ranking countries happiness and well-being levels, each report has contributing authors and most focus on a particular theme. The data used to rank countries in each report is drawn from the Gallup World Poll,[22] as well as other sources such as the World Values Survey, in some of the reports. The Gallup World Poll questionnaire[23] measures 14 areas within its core questions: (1) business & economic, (2) citizen engagement, (3) communications & technology, (4) diversity (social issues), (5) education & families, (6) emotions (well-being), (7) environment & energy, (8) food & shelter, (9) government and politics, (10) law & order (safety), (11) health, (12) religion & ethics, (13) transportation, and (14) work.

2023 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2023 World Happiness Report was a triannual analysis of 2020–2022, heavily influenced by COVID-19 and other significant challenges.[24]

For the sixth consecutive year, Finland was ranked on top, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Israel and the Netherlands. In the top-10 rankings, Israel jumped five places, while Switzerland fell four places. Lithuania was the only new country in the top-20.[25]

2022 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2022 World Happiness Report included a section looking at possible genetic effects on individual happiness.[26]

Finland is in the top position in the world happiness report in 2022. Followed by Denmark and Iceland in second and third place. Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand, were among the top 10 'happiest' countries in the world Happiness, Benevolence, and Trust During COVID-19 and Beyond.

Among 146 countries ranked by the report, Afghanistan scores the lowest point of 2.523 and was ranked as the least 'happy' country in the world in 2022.

2021 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2021 World Happiness Report, released on March 20, 2021, ranks 156 countries based on an average of three years of surveys between 2017 and 2019. The 2020 report especially focuses on the environment – social, urban, and natural, and includes links between happiness and sustainable development.[27]

Finland holds the rank of the happiest country in the world for the fourth consecutive year.[28] It is followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and Netherlands. Afghanistan received the lowest score, with South Sudan and Rwanda just above it. In addition to country rankings, this is the second year that the World Happiness Report ranks cities. The happiest city in the world is Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The report shows that the happiness ranking of cities is almost identical to that of the countries they are in.

2020 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2020 World Happiness Report, released on March 20, 2020, ranks 156 countries based on an average of three years of surveys between 2017 and 2019. The 2020 report especially focuses on the environment – social, urban, and natural, and includes links between happiness and sustainable development.[29]

Finland holds the rank of the happiest country in the world for the third consecutive year.[30] It is followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. Afghanistan received the lowest score, with South Sudan and Zimbabwe just above it.[31] In addition to country rankings, this is the first year that the World Happiness Report ranks cities. The happiest city in the world is Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The report shows that the happiness ranking of cities is almost identical to that of the countries they are in.

In 2020, the editorial team expanded and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve became a co-editor, joining John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre became a fourth research pillar for the report. Associate editors were Lara Aknin, Haifang Huang and Shun Wang, and Sharon Paculor was recognized as production editor. From 2020, Gallup became a full data partner.

2019 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2019 World Happiness Report focuses community. According to the 2019 Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world,[32] with Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and The Netherlands holding the next top positions.

The second chapter of the report, 'Changing World Happiness', measures year-to-year changes in happiness across countries. For this, changes are reported from 2005-2008 to 2016-2018. Of the 132 countries with data for 2005-2008 and 2016-2018, 106 had significant changes: 64 were significant increases and 42 were significant decreases. Benin was the top gainer, while Venezuela showed the greatest decrease. The chapter also considers how happiness has been affected by changes in the quality of government. The third chapter considers happiness and voting behaviour, with data suggesting that happier people are more likely to vote, and to vote for incumbents.

The fourth chapter is an examination of happiness and pro-social behaviour, finding that people are more likely to derive happiness from helping others when they feel free to choose whether or how to help, when they feel connected to the people they are helping, and when they can see how their help is making a difference.

The final topic of the report, digital and information technologies and happiness, is covered in the remaining chapters.

The editorial team for the 2019 report was expanded to include Lara Aknin as associate editor.

2018 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2018 iteration was released on 20 March and focused on the relation between happiness and migration.

2017 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The fifth World Happiness Report emphasizes the importance of the social foundations of happiness, which are analysed by comparing the life experiences between the top and bottom ten countries in the year’s happiness rankings. Norway topped the global happiness rankings in this report, jumping from fourth place in 2016 to first in 2017. It was followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland. The second chapter of the report focuses on the global rankings and calculates that bringing the social foundations from the lowest levels up to world average levels in 2014-2016 would increase life evaluations by almost two points. This means that social foundations effects are together larger than those of GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy.

The third chapter focuses on economic growth and wellbeing in China, and shows that unemployment and changes in the social safety nets explain both the post-1990 fall in happiness levels and the subsequent recovery since 2005. The fourth chapter discusses the reasons why countries in Africa are generally lagging behind others in life evaluations. The fifth chapter analyses key determinants of happiness, including income, mental health, and physical health. The sixth chapter considers the determinant of employment and work in particular, emphasising the importance of employment for happiness across the world. The final chapter uses happiness history over the past ten years, analysing the case of the United States through the lens of social foundations of happiness.

2016 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2016 World Happiness Report -Rome Addition was issued in two parts as an update. Part one had four chapters: (1) Setting the Stage, (2) The Distribution of World Happiness, (3) Promoting Secular Ethics, and (4) Happiness and Sustainable Development: Concepts and Evidence. Part two has six chapters: (1) Inside the Life Satisfaction Blackbox, (2) Human Flourishing, the Common Good, and Catholic Social Teaching, (3) The Challenges of Public Happiness: An Historical-Methodological Reconstruction, (4) The Geography of Parenthood and Well-Being: Do Children Make Us Happy, Where and Why?, and (5) Multidimensional Well-Being in Contemporary Europe: An Analysis of the Use of a Self-Organizing Map Applied to Share Data.

Chapter 1, Setting the Stage is written by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs. This chapter briefly surveys the happiness movement ("Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy.") gives an overview of the 2016 reports and synopsis of both parts of the 2016 Update Rome Addition.

Chapter 2, The Distribution of World Happiness is written by John F. Helliwell, Hailing Huang, and Shun Wang. This chapter reports happiness levels of countries and proposes the use of inequalities of happiness among individuals as a better measure for inequality than income inequality, and that all people in a population fare better in terms of happiness when there is less inequality in happiness in their region. It includes data from the World Health Organization and World Development Indicators, as well as Gallup World Poll. It debunks the notion that people rapidly adapt to changes in life circumstances and quickly return to an initial life satisfaction baseline, finding instead that changes in life circumstances such as government policies, major life events (unemployment, major disability) and immigration change people's baseline life satisfaction levels. This chapter also addresses the measure for affect (feelings), finding that positive affect (happiness, laughter, enjoyment) has much "large and highly significant impact" on life satisfaction than negative affect (worry, sadness, anger). The chapter also examines differences in happiness levels explained by the factors of (1) social support, (2) income, (3) healthy life, (4) trust in government and business, (5) perceived freedom to make life decisions and (6) generosity.

Chapter 3, Promoting Secular Ethics is written by Richard Layard, This chapter argues for a revival of an ethical life and world, harkening to times when religious organizations were a dominant force. It calls on secular non-profit organizations to promote "ethical living in a way that provides inspiration, uplift, joy and mutual respect", and gives examples of implementation by a non-profit founded by Richard Layard,[33] the chapter author, Action for Happiness, which offers online information from positive psychology and Buddhist teachings.

Chapter 4, Happiness and Sustainable Development: Concepts and Evidence is written by Jeffrey Sachs. This chapter identifies ways that sustainable development indicators (economic, social and environmental factors) can be used to explain variations in happiness. It concludes with a report about an appeal to include subjective well-being indicators into the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Part Two 2016 Special Rome Edition was edited by Jeffrey Sacks, Leonardo Becchetti and Anthony Arnett.

Chapter 1, Inside the Life Satisfaction Blackbox is written by Leonardo Becchetti, Luisa Carrado,[34] and Paolo Sama. This chapter proposes using quality of life measurements (a broader range of variables that life evaluation) in lieu of or in addition to overall life evaluations in future World Happiness Reports.

Chapter 2, Human Flourishing, the Common Good, and Catholic Social Teaching is written by Anthony Annett. This chapter contains explanations for three theories: (1) It is human nature to broadly define happiness and understand the connection between happiness and the common good, (2) that the current understanding of individuality is stripped of ties to the common good, and (3) that there is a need to restore the common good as central value for society. The chapter also proposes Catholic school teachings as a model for restoring the common good as a dominant value.

Chapter 3, The Challenges of Public Happiness: An Historical-Methodological Reconstruction is written by Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zemagni. This chapter contemplates Aristotelian concepts of happiness and virtue as they pertain to and support the findings in the World Happiness Reports regarding the impact of social support, trust in government, and equality of happiness.

Chapter 4, The Geography of Parenthood and Well-Being. Do Children Make Us Happy, Where and Why? is written by Luca Stanca.[35] This chapter examines other research findings that children do not add happiness to parents. Using data from the World Values Survey, it finds that, with the exception of widowed parents, having children has a negative effect on life satisfaction for parents in 2/3 of the 105 countries studied, with parents in richer countries suffering more. Once parents are old, life satisfaction increases. The chapter concludes that "existing evidence is not conclusive" and a statement that the causes for the low life satisfaction levels may be that for richer countries, having children is valued less, and in poorer countries, people suffer in financial and time costs when they have children.

Chapter 5, Multidimensional Well-Being in Contemporary Europe: Analysis of the Use of Self-Organizing Map Allied to SHARE Data is written by Mario Lucchini, Luca Crivelli[36] and Sara della Bella. This chapter contains a study of well-being data from older European adults. It finds that this chapter's study results were consistent with the World Happiness Report 2016 update: positive affect (feelings) have a stronger impact on a person's satisfaction with life than do negative affect (feelings).

2015 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2015 World Happiness Report has eight chapters: (1) Setting the Stage, (2) The Geography of World Happiness, (3) How Does Subjective Well-being Vary Around the World by Gender and Age?, (4) How to Make Policy When Happiness is the Goal, (5) Neuroscience of Happiness, (6) Healthy Young Minds Transforming the Mental Health of Children, (7) Human Values, Civil Economy, and Subjective Well-being, and (8) Investing in Social Capital.

Chapter 1, Setting the Stage is written by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs. This chapter celebrates the success of the happiness movement ("Happiness is increasingly considered a proper means of social progress and public policy."), citing the OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being, a referendum in the EU requiring member nations to measure happiness, and the success of the World Happiness reports (with readership at about 1.5 million), and the adoption of happiness by the government of the United Arab Emirates, and other areas. It sets an aspiration of the inclusion of subjective well-being into the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (not fulfilled), and outlines the 2015 report. It also address the use of the term Happiness, identifying the cons (narrowness of the term, breath of the term, flakiness), and defining the use of the term for the reasons that the 2011 UN General Assembly Resolution 65/309 Happiness Towards A Holistic Approach to Development[37] and April 2012 UN High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,[38] Bhutan's Gross National Happiness[39] philosophy, the term's "convening and attention attracting power", and the asset in a "double usage of happiness" as an emotional report and life evaluation.

Chapter 2, The Geography of Happiness is written by John F. Helliwell, Hailing Huang and Shun Wang. This chapter reports the happiness of nations measured by life evaluations. It includes color coded maps and an analysis of six factors the account for the differences: (1) social support in terms of someone to count on in times of need, (2) GDP per capita (income), (3) life expectancy (in terms of healthy years), (4) sense of corruption in government and business (trust), (5) perceived freedom to make life decisions, and (6) generosity. The first three factors were found to have the biggest impact on a population's happiness. Crisis (natural disasters and economic crisis) the quality of governance, and social support were found to be the key drivers for changes in national happiness levels, with the happiness of nations undergoing a crisis in which people have a strong sense of social support falling less than nations where people do not have a strong sense of social support.

Chapter 3, How Does Subjective Well-being Vary Around the Globe by Gender and Age? is written by Nicole Fortin, John F. Helliwell and Shun Wang. This chapter uses data for 12 experiences: happiness (the emotion), smiling or laughing, enjoyment, feeling safe at night, feeling well rested, and feeling interested, as well as anger, worry, sadness, depression, stress and pain to examine differences by gender and age. Findings reported include that there is not a lot of difference in life evaluations between men and women across nations or within ages in a nation (women have slightly higher life evaluations than men: 0.09 on a ten-point scale). It reports that overall happiness falls into a U shape with age on the x axis and happiness on the y, with the low point being middle age (45-50) for most nations (in some happiness does not go up much in later life, so the shape is more of a downhill slide), and that the U shape holds for feeling well rested in all regions. It finds that men generally feel safer at night than women but, when comparing countries, people in Latin America have the lowest sense of safety at night, while people in East Asia and Western Europe have the highest sense of safety at night. It also finds that as women age their sense of happiness declines and stress increases but worry decreases, as all people age their laughter, enjoyment and finding something of interest also declines, that anger is felt everywhere almost equally by men and women, stress peaks in the Middle Ages, and women experience depression more than men. It finds that where older people are happier, there is a sense of social support, freedom to make life choices and generosity (and income does not factor in as heavily as these three factors).

Chapter 4, How to Make Policy When Happiness is the Goal is written by Richard Layard and Gus O'Donnell. This chapter advocates for a "new form of cost-benefit analysis" for government expenditures in which a "critical level of extra happiness" yielded by a project is established. It contemplates the prioritization of increasing happiness of the happy vs. reducing misery of the miserable, as well as the issues of discount rate (weight) for the happiness of future generations. It includes a technical annex with equations for calculating the maximization for happiness in public expenditure, tax policy, regulations, the distribution of happiness and a discount rate.

Chapter 5, Neuroscience of Happiness is written by Richard J. Dawson and Brianna S. Schuyler. This chapter reports on research in brain science and happiness, identifying four aspects that account for happiness: (1) sustained positive emotion, (2) recovery of negative emotion (resilience), (3) empathy, altruism and pro-social behavior, and (4) mindfulness (mind-wandering/affective sickness). It concludes that the brain's elasticity indicates that one can change one's sense of happiness and life satisfaction (separate but overlapping positive consequences) levels by experiencing and practicing mindfulness, kindness, and generosity; and calls for more research on these topics.

Chapter 6, Healthy Young Minds: Transforming the Mental Health of Children is written by Richard Layard and Ann Hagell.[40] This chapter identifies emotional development as of primary importance, (compared to academic and behavioral factors) in a child's development and determination of whether a child will be a happy and well-functioning adult. It then focuses on the issue of mental illness in children, citing the statistic that while worldwide 10% of the world's children (approximately 200 million) suffer from diagnosable mental health problems, even in the richest nations, only one quarter of these children of them are in treatment. It identifies the action steps to treating children with mental health problems: local community-lead child well-being programs, training health care professions to identify mental health problems in children, parity of esteem for mental and physical problems and treatment, access to evidence-based mental health treatment for families and children, promotion of well-being in schools with well-being codes that inform the organizational behavior of schools, training teachers to identify mental health in children, teachings of life skills, measuring of children's well-being by schools, development of free apps available internationally to treat mental illness in teens, and inclusion of mental health with the goal of physical health in the Sustainable Development goals. The chapter lists the benefits of treating children's mental health: improved educational performance, reduction in youth crimes, improved earnings and employment in adulthood, and better parenting of the next generation.

Chapter 7, Human Values, Civil Economy and Subjective Well-being is written by Leonardo Bechhetti,[41] Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni. This chapter begins with a critique of the field of economics ("Economics today looks like physics before the discovery of electrons"), identifying reductionism in which humans are conceived of as 100% self-interested individuals (economic reductionism), profit maximization is prioritized over all other interests (corporate reductionism), and societal values are narrowly identified with GDP and ignore environmental, cultural, spiritual and relational aspects (value reductionism). The chapter them focuses on a theoretical approach termed "Civil Economy paradigm", and research about it demonstrating that going beyond reductionism leads to greater socialization for people and communities, and a rise in priority of the values of reciprocity, friendship, trustworthiness, and benevolence. It makes the argument that positive social relationships (trust, benevolence, shared social identities) yield happiness and positive economic outcomes. It ends with recommendations for move from the dominant model of elite-competitive democracy to a participatory/deliberative model of democracy with bottom-up political and economic participation and incentives for non-selfish actions (altruistic people) and corporations with wider goals than pure profit (ethical and environmentally responsible corporations).

Chapter 8, Investing in Social Capital is written by Jeffrey Sachs. This chapter focuses on "pro-sociality" ("individuals making decisions for the common good that may conflict with short-run egoistic incentives"). It identifies pro-social behaviors: honesty, benevolence, cooperation and trustworthiness. It recommends investment in social capital through education, moral instruction, professional codes of conduct, public censure and condemnation of violators of public trust, and public policies to narrow income inequalities for countries where there is generalized distrust of government and business, pervasive corruption and lawless behavior (such as tax evasion).

2013 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2013 World Happiness Report has eight chapters: (1) Introduction, (2) World Happiness: Trends, Explanations and Distribution, (3) Mental Illness and Unhappiness, (4) The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-being, (5) Restoring Virtue Ethics in the Quest for Happiness, (6) Using Well-being as a Guide to Policy, (7) The OECD Approach to Measuring Subjective Well-being, and (8) From Capabilities to Contentment: Testing the Links between Human Development and Life Satisfaction.

Chapter 1, Introduction is written by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs. It synopsizes the chapters and gives a discussion of the term happiness.

Chapter 2, World Happiness: Trends, Explanations and Distributions is written by John F. Helliwell and Shun Wang. It provides ratings among countries and regions for satisfaction with life using the Cantril Ladder, positive and negative affect (emotions), and log of GDP per capita, years of healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble, perceptions of corruption, prevalence of generosity, and freedom to make life choices.

Chapter 3, Mental Illness and Unhappiness is written by Richard Layard, Dan Chisholm, Vikram Patel, and Shekhar Saxel. It identifies the far ranging prevalence of mental illness around the world (10% of the world's population at one time) and provides the evidence showing that "mental illness is a highly influential - and...the single biggest - determinant of misery". It concludes with examples of interventions implemented by countries around the world.

Chapter 4, The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-being is written by Jan-Emmanuel de Neve, Ed Diener, Louis Tay and Cody Xuereb. It provides an explanation of the benefits of subjective well-being (happiness) on health & longevity, income, productivity & organizational behavior, and individual & social behavior. It touches on the role of happiness in human evolution through rewarding behaviors that increase evolutionary success and beneficial to survival.

Chapter 5, Restoring Virtue Ethics in the Quest for Happiness is written by Jeffrey Sachs. It argues that "a renewed focus on the role of ethics, and in particular of virtuous behavior, in happiness could lead us to new and effective strategies for raising individual, national and global well-being", looking to the eightfold noble path (the teachings of the dharma handed down in the Buddhist tradition that encompass wise view/understanding, wise intention, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, and effort, concentration and mindfulness), Aristotelian philosophy (people are social animals, "with individual happiness secured only within a political community...[which] should organize its institutions to promote virtuous behavior), and Christian doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas ("placing happiness in the context of servicing God's will"). It gives an explanation of the evolution of the field of economics up t the "failures of hyper-commercialism" and suggests an antidote based on four global ethical values: (1) non-violence and respect for life, (2) justice and solidarity, (3) honesty and tolerance, and (4) mutual esteem and partnership.

Chapter 6, Using Well-being as Guide to Public Policy is written by Gus O'Donnell. This chapter gives a status report on the issues governments grapple with in adopting well-being and happiness measures and goals for policy, from understanding the data or establishing whether a specific policy improves well-being, to figuring out how to "incorporate well-being into standard policy making". It provides examples of efforts to measure happiness and well-being from Bhutan, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and cities and communities in the US, Canada, Australia and Tasmania. It identifies the key policy areas of health, transport and education for policy makers to focus on and includes discussions about interpersonal comparability (concentrating on "getting people out of misery" instead of making happy people happier), discount rate (do we invest more in happiness for people today or in the future?) and putting a monetary value on happiness for policy trade off decisions (e.g. If "a 10% reduction in noise increase SWB by one unit, then we can infer that a 10% reduction is "worth" $1,000" when $1,000 would increase a person's SWB by one unit).

Chapter 7, The OECD Approach to Measuring Subjective Well-being is written by Martine Durand and Conal Smith. This chapter was written the same year the OECD issued its Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being,[42] and is a synopsis of such. It includes a definition for subjective well-being: life evaluation (a person's reflection on their life and life circumstances), affect (positive and negative emotions) and eudaimonia; core measures, a discussion on data collection processes, survey and sample design, other aspects of using subjective well-being metrics, and ideas on how policy-makers can use subjective well-being data. It surveys the status of wealthy countries subjective well-being data collection process, and identifies future directions of experimentation and better income measures, citing the Easterlin Paradox as the basis for this call.

Chapter 8, From Capabilities to Contentment: Testing the Links between Human Development and Life Satisfaction is written by Jon Hall.[43] This chapter explains the components of human development using objective metrics: (1) education, health and command over income and nutrition resources, (2) participation and freedom, (3) human security, (4) equity, and (5) sustainability; key findings of the Human Development Index (HDI) ("weak relationship between economic growth and changes in health and education" as well as life expectancy), and examines the relationship between the HDI and happiness, finding that (1) components of the HDI "correlate strongly with better life evaluations", and (2) there is a strong relationship between life evaluation and the "non-income HDI". It contemplates measurement of conditions of life beyond the HDI that are important to well-being: (1) better working conditions, (2) security against crime and physical violence, (3) participation in economic and political activities, (4) freedom and (5) inequality. The concludes with the statements that the HDI and SWB have similar approaches and importantly connected, with the two disciplines offering alternative and complementary views of development.

2012 World Happiness Report[edit]

Descriptions

The 2012 World Happiness Report was issued at the UN High Level Meeting Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm[44] by editors John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs. Part one has an introduction (chapter 1) and three chapters: (2) the State of World Happiness, (3) Causes of Happiness and Misery, Some Policy Implications. Part two has three chapters, each a case study, of Bhutan, the United Kingdom Office of National Statistics, and the OECD.

Chapter 1, The Introduction is by Jeffrey Sachs and references Buddha and Aristotle, identifies today's era as the anthropocene, and identifies the reasons GDP is not a sufficient measure to guide governments and society.

Chapter 2, The State of World Happiness, is written by John F. Helliwell and Shun Wang,[45] and contains a discussion of subjective well-being measures that ranges from the validity of subjective well-being measures to the seriousness of happiness, happiness set points and cultural comparisons, and it includes data from the Gallup World Poll, European Social Survey, and the World Values Survey.[46]

Chapter 3, The Causes of Happiness and Misery is written by Richard Layard, Andrew Clark,[47] and Claudia Senik,[48] and contemplates research on the impact on happiness of the external factors of income, work, community and governance, values and religion, as well as the internal factors of mental health, physical health, family experience, education, and gender and age.

Chapter 4, Some Policy Implications, written by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs, calls for a greater understanding on how governments can measure happiness, the determinants of happiness, and use of happiness data and findings about determinants for policy purposes. It also highlights the role of GDP ("GDP is important but not all that is important") as a guide to policy makers, the importance that policy makers should place on providing opportunities for employment; the role of happiness in policy making ("Making happiness an objective of governments would not therefore lead to the "servile society", and indeed quite the contrary...Happiness comes from an opportunity to mold one's own future, and thus depends on a robust level of freedom."); the role of values and religion ("In well-functioning societies there is widespread support for the universal value that we should treat others as we would like them to treat us. We need to cultivate social norms so that the rich and powerful are never given a feeling of impunity vis-à-vis the rest of society."); calls for wider access to psychological therapies in a section on mental health citing the fact that one third of all families are affected by mental illness; identifies improvements in physical health as "probably the single most important factor that has improved human happiness" and calls out the rich-poor gap in health care between rich and poor countries; calls on workplace and governmental policies that encourage work–life balance and reduce stress, including family support and child care; and states that "Universal access to education is widely judged to be a basic human right..." The chapter concludes with a philosophical discussion.

Chapter 5, Case Study: Bhutan Gross National Happiness and the GNH Index is written by Karma Ura,[49] Sabine Alkire,[50] and Tsoki Zangmo. It gives a short history of the development of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept in Bhutan, and an explanation of the GNH index, data collection and data analysis process, including the rating methodology to determine if an individual experiences happiness sufficiency levels, as well as the policy and lifestyle implications

Chapter 6, Case Study: ONS Measuring Subjective Well-being: The UK Office of National Statistics Experience is written by Stephen Hicks. It covers the basis for the creation of the Measuring National Well-being Programme[51] in the UK's Office of National Statistics[52] (ONS), and the development of their methodology for measuring well-being.

Chapter 5, Case Study OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being is an explanation about the process and rationale the OECD was undertaking to develop its Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being,[53] which it issued in 2013.

International rankings[edit]

Data is collected from people in over 150 countries. Each variable measured reveals a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other countries. These variables currently include:

Each country is also compared against a hypothetical nation called Dystopia. Dystopia represents the lowest national averages for each key variable and is, along with residual error, used as a regression benchmark. The six metrics are used to explain the estimated extent to which each of these factors contribute to increasing life satisfaction when compared to the hypothetical nation of Dystopia, but they themselves do not have an effect on the total score reported for each country.[54]

2024 report[edit]

The 2024 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2021–2023.[55]

Table
Overall rank Country or region Life evaluation
1  Finland 7.741
2  Denmark 7.583
3  Iceland 7.525
4  Sweden 7.344
5  Israel 7.341
6  Netherlands 7.319
7  Norway 7.302
8  Luxembourg 7.122
9   Switzerland 7.060
10  Australia 7.057
11  New Zealand 7.029
12  Costa Rica 6.955
13  Kuwait 6.951
14  Austria 6.905
15  Canada 6.900
16  Belgium 6.894
17  Ireland 6.838
18  Czechia 6.822
19  Lithuania 6.818
20  United Kingdom 6.749
21  Slovenia 6.743
22  United Arab Emirates 6.733
23  United States 6.725
24  Germany 6.719
25  Mexico 6.678
26  Uruguay 6.611
27  France 6.609
28  Saudi Arabia 6.594
29  Kosovo 6.561
30  Singapore 6.523
31  Taiwan 6.503
32  Romania 6.491
33  El Salvador 6.469
34  Estonia 6.448
35  Poland 6.442
36  Spain 6.421
37  Serbia 6.411
38  Chile 6.360
39  Panama 6.358
40  Malta 6.346
41  Italy 6.324
42  Guatemala 6.287
43  Nicaragua 6.284
44  Brazil 6.272
45  Slovakia 6.257
46  Latvia 6.234
47  Uzbekistan 6.195
48  Argentina 6.188
49  Kazakhstan 6.188
50  Cyprus 6.068
51  Japan 6.060
52  South Korea 6.058
53  Philippines 6.048
54  Vietnam 6.043
55  Portugal 6.030
56  Hungary 6.017
57  Paraguay 5.977
58  Thailand 5.976
59  Malaysia 5.975
60  China 5.973
61  Honduras 5.968
62  Bahrain 5.959
63  Croatia 5.942
64  Greece 5.934
65  Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.877
66  Libya 5.866
67  Jamaica 5.842
68  Peru 5.841
69  Dominican Republic 5.823
70  Mauritius 5.816
71  Moldova 5.816
72  Russia 5.785
73  Bolivia 5.784
74  Ecuador 5.725
75  Kyrgyzstan 5.714
76  Montenegro 5.707
77  Mongolia 5.696
78  Colombia 5.695
79  Venezuela 5.607
80  Indonesia 5.568
81  Bulgaria 5.463
82  Armenia 5.455
83  South Africa 5.422
84  North Macedonia 5.369
85  Algeria 5.364
86  Hong Kong 5.316
87  Albania 5.304
88  Tajikistan 5.281
89  Congo (Brazzaville) 5.221
90  Mozambique 5.216
91  Georgia 5.185
92  Iraq 5.166
93    Nepal 5.158
94  Laos 5.139
95  Gabon 5.106
96  Ivory Coast 5.080
97  Guinea 5.023
98  Turkiye 4.975
99  Senegal 4.969
100  Iran 4.923
101  Azerbaijan 4.893
102  Nigeria 4.881
103  State of Palestine 4.879
104  Cameroon 4.874
105  Ukraine 4.873
106  Namibia 4.832
107  Morocco 4.795
108  Pakistan 4.657
109  Niger 4.556
110  Burkina Faso 4.548
111  Mauritania 4.505
112  Gambia 4.485
113  Chad 4.471
114  Kenya 4.470
115  Tunisia 4.422
116  Benin 4.377
117  Uganda 4.372
118  Myanmar 4.354
119  Cambodia 4.341
120  Ghana 4.289
121  Liberia 4.269
122  Mali 4.232
123  Madagascar 4.228
124  Togo 4.214
125  Jordan 4.186
126  India 4.054
127  Egypt 3.977
128  Sri Lanka 3.898
129  Bangladesh 3.886
130  Ethiopia 3.861
131  Tanzania 3.781
132  Comoros 3.566
133  Yemen 3.561
134  Zambia 3.502
135  Eswatini 3.502
136  Malawi 3.421
137  Botswana 3.383
138  Zimbabwe 3.341
139  Congo (Kinshasa) 3.295
140  Sierra Leone 3.245
141  Lesotho 3.186
142  Lebanon 2.707
143  Afghanistan 1.721

2023 report[edit]

The 2023 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2020–2022.

Table
Overall rank Country or region
1  Finland
2  Denmark
3  Iceland
4  Israel
5  Netherlands
6  Sweden
7  Norway
8   Switzerland
9  Luxembourg
10  New Zealand
11  Austria
12  Australia
13  Canada
14  Ireland
15  United States
16  Germany
17  Belgium
18  Czech Republic
19  United Kingdom
20  Lithuania
21  France
22  Slovenia
23  Costa Rica
24  Romania
25  Singapore*
26  United Arab Emirates
27  Taiwan
28  Uruguay
29  Slovakia*
30  Saudi Arabia
31  Estonia
32  Spain
33  Italy
34  Kosovo
35  Chile
36  Mexico
37  Malta
38  Panama
39  Poland
40  Nicaragua
41  Latvia
42  Bahrain*
43  Guatemala
44  Kazakhstan
45  Serbia*
46  Cyprus
47  Japan
48  Croatia
49  Brazil
50  El Salvador
51  Hungary
52  Argentina
53  Honduras
54  Uzbekistan
55  Malaysia*
56  Portugal
57  South Korea
58  Greece
59  Mauritius
60  Thailand
61  Mongolia
62  Kyrgyzstan
63  Moldova
64  China*
65  Vietnam
66  Paraguay
67  Montenegro*
68  Jamaica
69  Bolivia
70  Russia
71  Bosnia and Herzegovina*
72  Colombia
73  Dominican Republic
74  Ecuador
75  Peru
76  Philippines*
77  Bulgaria
78    Nepal
79  Armenia
80  Tajikistan*
81  Algeria*
82  Hong Kong
83  Albania
84  Indonesia
85  South Africa*
86  Congo, Republic of
87  North Macedonia
88  Venezuela
89  Laos*
90  Georgia
91  Guinea
92  Ukraine
93  Ivory Coast
94  Gabon
95  Nigeria*
96  Cameroon
97  Mozambique
98  Iraq*
99  Palestine
100  Morocco
101  Iran
102  Senegal
103  Mauritania
104  Burkina Faso*
105  Namibia
106  Turkey*
107  Ghana
108  Pakistan
109  Niger
110  Tunisia
111  Kenya
112  Sri Lanka*
113  Uganda*
114  Chad
115  Cambodia
116  Benin
117  Myanmar*
118  Bangladesh
119  Gambia
120  Mali
121  Egypt
122  Togo
123  Jordan
124  Ethiopia
125  Liberia
126  India
127  Madagascar
128  Zambia*
129  Tanzania
130  Comoros
131  Malawi
132  Botswana
133  Congo, Democratic Republic of
134  Zimbabwe
135  Sierra Leone
136  Lebanon
137  Afghanistan
* indicates the country does not have survey information in 2022. Their averages are based on the 2020 and 2021 surveys.

2022 report[edit]

Table
Overall rank Country or region
1  Finland
2  Denmark
3  Iceland
4   Switzerland
5  Netherlands
6  Luxembourg
7  Sweden
8  Norway
9  Israel
10  New Zealand
11  Austria
12  Australia
13  Ireland
14  Germany
15  Canada
16  United States
17  United Kingdom
18  Czech Republic
19  Belgium
20  France

2020 report[edit]

The 2020 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2017–2019. Finland is the 'happiest' country in the world, followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. The data comes from the Gallup World Poll, based entirely on survey scores and answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll.

Table
Overall rank Country or region Score GDP per capita Social support Healthy life expectancy Freedom to make life choices Generosity Perceptions of corruption
1  Finland 7.809 1.285 1.500 0.961 0.662 0.160 0.478
2  Denmark 7.646 1.327 1.503 0.979 0.665 0.243 0.495
3   Switzerland 7.560 1.391 1.472 1.041 0.629 0.269 0.408
4  Iceland 7.504 1.327 1.548 1.001 0.662 0.362 0.145
5  Norway 7.488 1.424 1.495 1.008 0.670 0.288 0.434
6  Netherlands 7.449 1.339 1.464 0.976 0.614 0.336 0.369
7  Sweden 7.353 1.322 1.433 0.986 0.650 0.273 0.442
8  New Zealand 7.300 1.242 1.487 1.008 0.647 0.326 0.461
9  Austria 7.294 1.317 1.437 1.001 0.603 0.256 0.281
10  Luxembourg 7.238 1.537 1.388 0.986 0.610 0.196 0.367
11  Canada 7.232 1.302 1.435 1.023 0.644 0.282 0.352
12  Australia 7.223 1.310 1.477 1.023 0.622 0.325 0.336
13  United Kingdom 7.165 1.273 1.458 0.976 0.525 0.373 0.323
14  Israel 7.129 1.216 1.403 1.008 0.421 0.267 0.100
15  Costa Rica 7.121 0.981 1.375 0.940 0.645 0.131 0.096
16  Ireland 7.094 1.447 1.471 0.976 0.588 0.295 0.373
17  Germany 7.076 1.314 1.369 0.972 0.564 0.252 0.309
18  United States 6.940 1.374 1.405 0.832 0.535 0.298 0.152
19  Czech Republic 6.911 1.212 1.405 0.895 0.506 0.046 0.050
20  Belgium 6.864 1.296 1.399 0.965 0.500 0.147 0.209
21  United Arab Emirates 6.791 1.431 1.251 0.788 0.653 0.281 0.220
22  Malta 6.773 1.253 1.443 0.972 0.633 0.341 0.179
23  France 6.664 1.268 1.459 1.030 0.514 0.113 0.227
24  Mexico 6.465 1.024 1.226 0.832 0.554 0.083 0.083
25  Taiwan 6.455 1.327 1.358 0.878 0.449 0.151 0.132
26  Uruguay 6.440 1.071 1.425 0.857 0.594 0.132 0.193
27  Saudi Arabia 6.406 1.334 1.310 0.760 0.548 0.087 0.163
28  Spain 6.401 1.231 1.421 1.051 0.426 0.165 0.110
29  Guatemala 6.399 0.754 1.174 0.706 0.613 0.171 0.098
30  Italy 6.387 1.236 1.347 1.023 0.321 0.170 0.040
31  Singapore 6.377 1.520 1.395 1.138 0.635 0.219 0.533
32  Brazil 6.376 0.953 1.363 0.766 0.483 0.132 0.107
33  Slovenia 6.363 1.209 1.465 0.933 0.647 0.146 0.077
34  El Salvador 6.348 0.749 1.149 0.753 0.524 0.119 0.117
35  Kosovo 6.325 0.840 1.184 0.673 0.557 0.325 0.009
36  Panama 6.305 1.098 1.376 0.879 0.580 0.097 0.054
37  Slovakia 6.281 1.195 1.424 0.853 0.424 0.117 0.011
38  Uzbekistan 6.258 0.697 1.434 0.717 0.693 0.363 0.280
39  Chile 6.228 1.097 1.323 0.889 0.417 0.156 0.063
40  Bahrain 6.227 1.297 1.315 0.839 0.610 0.287 0.127
41  Lithuania 6.215 1.194 1.433 0.795 0.420 0.054 0.081
42  Trinidad and Tobago 6.192 1.168 1.407 0.659 0.553 0.199 0.015
43  Poland 6.186 1.169 1.310 0.868 0.558 0.063 0.161
44  Colombia 6.163 0.932 1.334 0.810 0.527 0.092 0.046
45  Cyprus 6.159 1.213 1.149 1.026 0.459 0.228 0.051
46  Nicaragua 6.137 0.620 1.271 0.803 0.560 0.213 0.174
47  Romania 6.124 1.120 1.194 0.792 0.535 0.068 0.001
48  Kuwait 6.102 1.425 1.245 0.776 0.570 0.133 0.113
49  Mauritius 6.101 1.074 1.396 0.763 0.591 0.187 0.084
50  Kazakhstan 6.058 1.123 1.453 0.699 0.497 0.154 0.110
51  Estonia 6.022 1.192 1.453 0.843 0.577 0.125 0.202
52  Philippines 6.006 0.775 1.245 0.602 0.622 0.129 0.130
53  Hungary 6.000 1.164 1.423 0.807 0.386 0.070 0.028
54  Thailand 5.999 1.007 1.348 0.794 0.609 0.377 0.032
55  Argentina 5.975 1.028 1.373 0.850 0.521 0.070 0.060
56  Honduras 5.953 0.599 1.187 0.792 0.568 0.257 0.087
57  Latvia 5.950 1.141 1.414 0.778 0.329 0.075 0.090
58  Ecuador 5.925 0.853 1.221 0.839 0.555 0.115 0.087
59  Portugal 5.911 1.169 1.340 0.979 0.590 0.053 0.028
60  Jamaica 5.890 0.779 1.408 0.788 0.553 0.116 0.030
61  South Korea 5.872 1.245 1.134 1.023 0.259 0.170 0.095
62  Japan 5.871 1.267 1.332 1.073 0.495 0.036 0.181
63  Peru 5.797 0.919 1.208 0.824 0.513 0.092 0.027
64  Serbia 5.778 0.988 1.327 0.828 0.395 0.150 0.059
65  Bolivia 5.747 0.731 1.142 0.662 0.574 0.138 0.073
66  Pakistan 5.693 0.617 0.873 0.470 0.405 0.229 0.123
67  Paraguay 5.692 0.898 1.368 0.736 0.587 0.204 0.065
68  Dominican Republic 5.689 0.983 1.329 0.742 0.563 0.112 0.116
69  Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.674 0.918 1.204 0.814 0.305 0.264 0.001
70  Moldova 5.608 0.708 1.237 0.713 0.390 0.174 0.014
71  Tajikistan 5.556 0.475 1.218 0.681 0.521 0.182 0.222
72  Montenegro 5.546 1.010 1.266 0.839 0.303 0.149 0.098
73  Russia 5.546 1.127 1.379 0.680 0.399 0.099 0.046
74  Kyrgyzstan 5.542 0.513 1.341 0.681 0.615 0.301 0.030
75  Belarus 5.540 1.019 1.387 0.753 0.291 0.090 0.194
76  North Cyprus 5.536 1.213 1.183 1.026 0.478 0.199 0.200
77  Greece 5.515 1.128 1.169 0.979 0.174 0.000 0.049
78  Hong Kong 5.510 1.377 1.244 1.137 0.459 0.288 0.332
79  Croatia 5.505 1.109 1.311 0.901 0.381 0.114 0.012
80  Libya 5.489 1.022 1.196 0.616 0.451 0.143 0.172
81  Mongolia 5.456 0.905 1.459 0.616 0.356 0.264 0.047
82  Malaysia 5.384 1.168 1.174 0.789 0.597 0.275 0.062
83  Vietnam 5.353 0.718 1.253 0.819 0.651 0.136 0.090
84  Indonesia 5.286 0.892 1.155 0.610 0.568 0.543 0.038
85  Ivory Coast 5.233 0.537 0.800 0.155 0.397 0.170 0.093
86  Benin 5.216 0.366 0.352 0.328 0.406 0.197 0.126
87  Maldives 5.198 0.938 1.402 0.914 0.548 0.224 0.072
88  Congo (Brazzaville) 5.194 0.634 0.758 0.458 0.387 0.117 0.119
89  Azerbaijan 5.165 0.990 1.181 0.731 0.468 0.040 0.247
90  North Macedonia 5.160 0.935 1.183 0.803 0.410 0.186 0.025
91  Ghana 5.148 0.576 0.966 0.432 0.477 0.261 0.057
92    Nepal 5.137 0.444 1.101 0.669 0.481 0.301 0.128
93  Turkey 5.132 1.127 1.197 0.781 0.254 0.086 0.121
94  China 5.124 0.991 1.132 0.867 0.602 0.079 0.117
95  Turkmenistan 5.119 1.009 1.510 0.612 0.515 0.323 0.034
96  Bulgaria 5.102 1.047 1.461 0.778 0.418 0.104 0.000
97  Morocco 5.095 0.759 0.645 0.745 0.450 0.040 0.077
98  Cameroon 5.085 0.504 0.900 0.270 0.439 0.198 0.054
99  Venezuela 5.053 0.770 1.349 0.767 0.272 0.087 0.064
100  Algeria 5.005 0.944 1.143 0.745 0.084 0.119 0.129
101  Senegal 4.981 0.504 0.955 0.518 0.352 0.164 0.082
102  Guinea 4.949 0.390 0.751 0.334 0.372 0.249 0.112
103  Niger 4.910 0.108 0.704 0.299 0.435 0.208 0.138
104  Laos 4.889 0.715 0.987 0.486 0.612 0.273 0.194
105  Albania 4.883 0.907 0.830 0.846 0.462 0.171 0.025
106  Cambodia 4.848 0.545 1.071 0.588 0.675 0.233 0.073
107  Bangladesh 4.833 0.556 0.869 0.695 0.604 0.177 0.177
108  Gabon 4.829 0.988 1.106 0.523 0.369 0.052 0.056
109  South Africa 4.814 0.902 1.259 0.407 0.435 0.126 0.060
110  Iraq 4.785 0.982 1.011 0.529 0.284 0.153 0.073
111  Lebanon 4.772 0.889 1.192 0.789 0.186 0.159 0.022
112  Burkina Faso 4.769 0.302 0.929 0.313 0.322 0.186 0.126
113  Gambia 4.751 0.257 0.883 0.353 0.403 0.426 0.158
114  Mali 4.729 0.352 0.973 0.235 0.378 0.170 0.062
115  Nigeria 4.724 0.646 0.987 0.168 0.435 0.221 0.048
116  Armenia 4.677 0.808 1.035 0.776 0.378 0.107 0.105
117  Georgia 4.673 0.847 0.731 0.695 0.485 0.048 0.174
118  Iran 4.672 1.029 0.886 0.749 0.301 0.277 0.143
119  Jordan 4.633 0.785 1.140 0.778 0.425 0.091 0.152
120  Mozambique 4.624 0.179 0.955 0.324 0.561 0.220 0.163
121  Kenya 4.583 0.476 0.905 0.536 0.519 0.394 0.067
122  Namibia 4.571 0.840 1.246 0.407 0.445 0.076 0.054
123  Ukraine 4.561 0.780 1.321 0.699 0.319 0.179 0.010
124  Liberia 4.558 0.174 0.921 0.392 0.406 0.227 0.051
125  Palestine 4.553 0.588 1.195 0.614 0.299 0.092 0.072
126  Uganda 4.432 0.312 1.052 0.378 0.402 0.265 0.064
127  Chad 4.423 0.302 0.739 0.109 0.229 0.211 0.086
128  Tunisia 4.392 0.875 0.872 0.781 0.236 0.056 0.044
129  Mauritania 4.375 0.540 1.113 0.425 0.186 0.129 0.122
130  Sri Lanka 4.327 0.898 1.195 0.792 0.529 0.253 0.049
131  Congo (Kinshasa) 4.311 0.062 0.833 0.277 0.365 0.254 0.081
132  Eswatini 4.308 0.828 1.065 0.216 0.300 0.067 0.147
133  Myanmar 4.308 0.678 1.098 0.495 0.597 0.570 0.188
134  Comoros 4.289 0.416 0.723 0.437 0.181 0.259 0.100
135  Togo 4.187 0.268 0.548 0.343 0.304 0.201 0.115
136  Ethiopia 4.186 0.315 1.001 0.484 0.413 0.228 0.117
137  Madagascar 4.166 0.245 0.824 0.501 0.193 0.191 0.076
138  Egypt 4.151 0.875 0.983 0.597 0.374 0.069 0.095
139  Sierra Leone 3.926 0.241 0.748 0.204 0.382 0.258 0.048
140  Burundi 3.775 0.000 0.404 0.295 0.275 0.187 0.212
141  Zambia 3.759 0.537 0.896 0.364 0.491 0.251 0.087
142  Haiti 3.721 0.285 0.647 0.374 0.169 0.464 0.162
143  Lesotho 3.653 0.455 1.089 0.101 0.409 0.103 0.050
144  India 3.573 0.731 0.644 0.541 0.581 0.237 0.106
145  Malawi 3.538 0.177 0.530 0.446 0.487 0.213 0.132
146  Yemen 3.527 0.393 1.177 0.415 0.244 0.095 0.087
147  Botswana 3.479 0.998 1.086 0.494 0.509 0.033 0.102
148  Tanzania 3.476 0.457 0.873 0.443 0.509 0.272 0.204
149  Central African Republic 3.476 0.041 0.000 0.000 0.293 0.254 0.028
150  Rwanda 3.312 0.343 0.523 0.572 0.604 0.236 0.486
151  Zimbabwe 3.299 0.426 1.048 0.375 0.377 0.151 0.081
152  South Sudan 2.817 0.289 0.553 0.209 0.066 0.210 0.111
153  Afghanistan 2.567 0.301 0.356 0.266 0.000 0.135 0.001

2019 report[edit]

The 2019 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2016–2018. As per the 2019 Happiness Index, Finland is the 'happiest' country in the world. Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Netherlands hold the next top positions. The report was published on 20 March 2019 by UN. The full report can be read at 2019 Report. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness.

Table
Overall rank Country or region Score GDP per capita Social support Healthy life expectancy Freedom to make life choices Generosity Perceptions of corruption
1  Finland 7.769 1.340 1.587 0.986 0.596 0.153 0.393
2  Denmark 7.600 1.383 1.573 0.996 0.592 0.252 0.410
3  Norway 7.554 1.488 1.582 1.028 0.603 0.271 0.341
4  Iceland 7.494 1.380 1.624 1.026 0.591 0.354 0.118
5  Netherlands 7.488 1.396 1.522 0.999 0.557 0.322 0.298
6   Switzerland 7.480 1.452 1.526 1.052 0.572 0.263 0.343
7  Sweden 7.343 1.387 1.487 1.009 0.574 0.267 0.373
8  New Zealand 7.307 1.303 1.557 1.026 0.585 0.330 0.380
9  Canada 7.278 1.365 1.505 1.039 0.584 0.285 0.308
10  Austria 7.246 1.376 1.475 1.016 0.532 0.244 0.226
11  Australia 7.228 1.372 1.548 1.036 0.557 0.332 0.290
12  Costa Rica 7.167 1.034 1.441 0.963 0.558 0.144 0.093
13  Israel 7.139 1.276 1.455 1.029 0.371 0.261 0.082
14  Luxembourg 7.090 1.609 1.479 1.012 0.526 0.194 0.316
15  United Kingdom 7.054 1.333 1.538 0.996 0.450 0.348 0.278
16  Ireland 7.021 1.499 1.553 0.999 0.516 0.298 0.310
17  Germany 6.985 1.373 1.454 0.987 0.495 0.261 0.265
18  Belgium 6.923 1.356 1.504 0.986 0.473 0.160 0.210
19  United States of America 6.892 1.433 1.457 0.874 0.454 0.280 0.128
20  Czech Republic 6.852 1.269 1.487 0.920 0.457 0.046 0.036
21  United Arab Emirates 6.825 1.503 1.310 0.825 0.598 0.262 0.182
22  Malta 6.726 1.300 1.520 0.999 0.564 0.375 0.151
23  Mexico 6.595 1.070 1.323 0.861 0.433 0.074 0.073
24  France 6.592 1.324 1.472 1.045 0.436 0.111 0.183
25  Taiwan 6.446 1.368 1.430 0.914 0.351 0.242 0.097
26  Chile 6.444 1.159 1.369 0.920 0.357 0.187 0.056
27  Guatemala 6.436 0.800 1.269 0.746 0.535 0.175 0.078
28  Saudi Arabia 6.375 1.403 1.357 0.795 0.439 0.080 0.132
29  Qatar 6.374 1.684 1.313 0.871 0.555 0.220 0.167
30  Spain 6.354 1.286 1.484 1.062 0.362 0.153 0.079
31  Panama 6.321 1.149 1.442 0.910 0.516 0.109 0.054
32  Brazil 6.300 1.004 1.439 0.802 0.390 0.099 0.086
33  Uruguay 6.293 1.124 1.465 0.891 0.523 0.127 0.150
34  Singapore 6.262 1.572 1.463 1.141 0.556 0.271 0.453
35  El Salvador 6.253 0.794 1.242 0.789 0.430 0.093 0.074
36  Italy 6.223 1.294 1.488 1.039 0.231 0.158 0.030
37  Bahrain 6.199 1.362 1.368 0.871 0.536 0.255 0.110
38  Slovakia 6.198 1.246 1.504 0.881 0.334 0.121 0.014
39  Trinidad & Tobago 6.192 1.231 1.477 0.713 0.489 0.185 0.016
40  Poland 6.182 1.206 1.438 0.884 0.483 0.117 0.050
41  Uzbekistan 6.174 0.745 1.529 0.756 0.631 0.322 0.240
42  Lithuania 6.149 1.238 1.515 0.818 0.291 0.043 0.042
43  Colombia 6.125 0.985 1.410 0.841 0.470 0.099 0.034
44  Slovenia 6.118 1.258 1.523 0.953 0.564 0.144 0.057
45  Nicaragua 6.105 0.694 1.325 0.835 0.435 0.200 0.127
46  Kosovo 6.100 0.882 1.232 0.758 0.489 0.262 0.006
47  Argentina 6.086 1.092 1.432 0.881 0.471 0.066 0.050
48  Romania 6.070 1.162 1.232 0.825 0.462 0.083 0.005
49  Cyprus 6.046 1.263 1.223 1.042 0.406 0.190 0.041
50  Ecuador 6.028 0.912 1.312 0.868 0.498 0.126 0.087
51  Kuwait 6.011 1.050 1.409 0.828 0.557 0.359 0.028
52  Thailand 6.008 1.050 1.409 0.828 0.557 0.359 0.028
53  Latvia 5.940 1.187 1.465 0.812 0.264 0.075 0.064
54  South Korea 5.895 1.301 1.219 1.036 0.159 0.175 0.056
55  Estonia 5.893 1.237 1.528 0.874 0.495 0.103 0.161
56  Jamaica 5.890 0.831 1.478 0.831 0.490 0.107 0.028
57  Mauritius 5.888 1.120 1.402 0.798 0.498 0.215 0.060
58  Japan 5.886 1.327 1.419 1.088 0.445 0.069 0.140
59  Honduras 5.860 0.642 1.236 0.828 0.507 0.246 0.078
60  Kazakhstan 5.809 1.173 1.508 0.729 0.410 0.146 0.096
61  Bolivia 5.779 0.776 1.209 0.706 0.511 0.137 0.064
62  Hungary 5.758 1.201 1.410 0.828 0.199 0.081 0.020
63  Paraguay 5.743 0.855 1.475 0.777 0.514 0.184 0.080
64  Northern Cyprus 5.718 1.263 1.252 1.042 0.417 0.191 0.162
65  Peru 5.697 0.960 1.274 0.854 0.455 0.083 0.027
66  Portugal 5.693 1.221 1.431 0.999 0.508 0.047 0.025
67  Pakistan 5.653 0.677 0.886 0.535 0.313 0.220 0.098
68  Russia 5.648 1.183 1.452 0.726 0.334 0.082 0.031
69  Philippines 5.631 0.807 1.293 0.657 0.558 0.117 0.107
70  Serbia 5.603 1.004 1.383 0.854 0.282 0.137 0.039
71  Moldova 5.529 0.685 1.328 0.739 0.245 0.181 0.000
72  Libya 5.525 1.044 1.303 0.673 0.416 0.133 0.152
73  Montenegro 5.523 1.051 1.361 0.871 0.197 0.142 0.080
74  Tajikistan 5.467 0.493 1.098 0.718 0.389 0.230 0.144
75  Croatia 5.432 1.155 1.266 0.914 0.296 0.119 0.022
76  Hong Kong 5.430 1.438 1.277 1.122 0.440 0.258 0.287
77  Dominican Republic 5.425 1.015 1.401 0.779 0.497 0.113 0.101
78  Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.386 0.945 1.212 0.845 0.212 0.263 0.006
79  Turkey 5.373 1.183 1.360 0.808 0.195 0.083 0.106
80  Malaysia 5.339 1.221 1.171 0.828 0.508 0.260 0.024
81  Belarus 5.323 1.067 1.465 0.789 0.235 0.094 0.142
82  Greece 5.287 1.181 1.156 0.999 0.067 0.000 0.034
83  Mongolia 5.285 0.948 1.531 0.667 0.317 0.235 0.038
84  North Macedonia 5.274 0.983 1.294 0.838 0.345 0.185 0.034
85  Nigeria 5.265 0.696 1.111 0.245 0.426 0.215 0.041
86  Kyrgyzstan 5.261 0.551 1.438 0.723 0.508 0.300 0.023
87  Turkmenistan 5.247 1.052 1.538 0.657 0.394 0.244 0.028
88  Algeria 5.211 1.002 1.160 0.785 0.086 0.073 0.114
89  Morocco 5.208 0.801 0.782 0.782 0.418 0.036 0.076
90  Azerbaijan 5.208 1.043 1.147 0.769 0.351 0.035 0.182
91  Lebanon 5.197 0.987 1.224 0.815 0.216 0.166 0.027
92  Indonesia 5.192 0.931 1.203 0.660 0.491 0.498 0.028
93  China 5.191 1.029 1.125 0.893 0.521 0.058 0.100
94  Vietnam 5.175 0.741 1.346 0.851 0.543 0.147 0.073
95  Bhutan 5.082 0.813 1.321 0.604 0.457 0.370 0.167
96  Cameroon 5.044 0.549 0.910 0.331 0.381 0.187 0.037
97  Bulgaria 5.011 1.092 1.513 0.815 0.311 0.081 0.004
98  Ghana 4.996 0.611 0.868 0.486 0.381 0.245 0.040
99  Ivory Coast 4.944 0.569 0.808 0.232 0.352 0.154 0.090
100    Nepal 4.913 0.446 1.226 0.677 0.439 0.285 0.089
101  Jordan 4.906 0.837 1.225 0.815 0.383 0.110 0.130
102  Benin 4.883 0.393 0.437 0.397 0.349 0.175 0.082
103  Congo (Brazzaville) 4.812 0.673 0.799 0.508 0.372 0.105 0.093
104  Gabon 4.799 1.057 1.183 0.571 0.295 0.043 0.055
105  Laos 4.796 0.764 1.030 0.551 0.547 0.266 0.164
106  South Africa 4.722 0.960 1.351 0.469 0.389 0.130 0.055
107  Albania 4.719 0.947 0.848 0.874 0.383 0.178 0.027
108  Venezuela 4.707 0.960 1.427 0.805 0.154 0.064 0.047
109  Cambodia 4.700 0.574 1.122 0.637 0.609 0.232 0.062
110  Palestinian Territories 4.696 0.657 1.247 0.672 0.225 0.103 0.066
111  Senegal 4.681 0.450 1.134 0.571 0.292 0.153 0.072
112  Somalia 4.668 0.000 0.698 0.268 0.559 0.243 0.270
113  Namibia 4.639 0.879 1.313 0.477 0.401 0.070 0.056
114  Niger 4.628 0.138 0.774 0.366 0.318 0.188 0.102
115  Burkina Faso 4.587 0.331 1.056 0.380 0.255 0.177 0.113
116  Armenia 4.559 0.850 1.055 0.815 0.283 0.095 0.064
117  Iran 4.548 1.100 0.842 0.785 0.305 0.270 0.125
118  Guinea 4.534 0.380 0.829 0.375 0.332 0.207 0.086
119  Georgia 4.519 0.886 0.666 0.752 0.346 0.043 0.164
120  Gambia 4.516 0.308 0.939 0.428 0.382 0.269 0.167
121  Kenya 4.509 0.512 0.983 0.581 0.431 0.372 0.053
122  Mauritania 4.490 0.570 1.167 0.489 0.066 0.106 0.088
123  Mozambique 4.466 0.204 0.986 0.390 0.494 0.197 0.138
124  Tunisia 4.461 0.921 1.000 0.815 0.167 0.059 0.055
125  Bangladesh 4.456 0.562 0.928 0.723 0.527 0.166 0.143
126  Iraq 4.437 1.043 0.980 0.574 0.241 0.148 0.089
127  Congo (Kinshasa) 4.418 0.094 1.125 0.357 0.269 0.212 0.053
128  Mali 4.390 0.385 1.105 0.308 0.327 0.153 0.052
129  Sierra Leone 4.374 0.268 0.841 0.242 0.309 0.252 0.045
130  Sri Lanka 4.366 0.949 1.265 0.831 0.470 0.244 0.047
131  Myanmar 4.360 0.710 1.181 0.555 0.525 0.566 0.172
132  Chad 4.350 0.350 0.766 0.192 0.174 0.198 0.078
133  Ukraine 4.332 0.820 1.390 0.739 0.178 0.187 0.010
134  Ethiopia 4.286 0.336 1.033 0.532 0.344 0.209 0.100
135  Eswatini 4.212 0.811 1.149 0.000 0.313 0.074 0.135
136  Uganda 4.189 0.332 1.069 0.443 0.356 0.252 0.060
137  Egypt 4.166 0.913 1.039 0.644 0.241 0.076 0.067
138  Zambia 4.107 0.578 1.058 0.426 0.431 0.247 0.087
139  Togo 4.085 0.275 0.572 0.410 0.293 0.177 0.085
140  India 4.015 0.755 0.765 0.588 0.498 0.200 0.085
141  Liberia 3.975 0.073 0.922 0.443 0.370 0.233 0.033
142  Comoros 3.973 0.274 0.757 0.505 0.142 0.275 0.078
143  Madagascar 3.933 0.274 0.916 0.555 0.148 0.169 0.041
144  Lesotho 3.802 0.489 1.169 0.168 0.359 0.107 0.093
145  Burundi 3.775 0.046 0.447 0.380 0.220 0.176 0.180
146  Zimbabwe 3.663 0.366 1.114 0.433 0.361 0.151 0.089
147  Haiti 3.597 0.323 0.688 0.449 0.026 0.419 0.110
148  Botswana 3.488 1.041 1.145 0.538 0.455 0.025 0.100
149  Syria 3.462 0.619 0.378 0.440 0.013 0.331 0.141
150  Malawi 3.410 0.191 0.560 0.495 0.443 0.218 0.089
151  Yemen 3.380 0.287 1.163 0.463 0.143 0.108 0.077
152  Rwanda 3.334 0.359 0.711 0.614 0.555 0.217 0.411
153  Tanzania 3.231 0.476 0.885 0.499 0.417 0.276 0.147
154  Afghanistan 3.203 0.350 0.517 0.361 0.000 0.158 0.025
155  Central African Republic 3.083 0.026 0.000 0.105 0.225 0.235 0.035
156  South Sudan 2.853 0.306 0.575 0.295 0.010 0.202 0.091

2018 report[edit]

The 2018 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2015–2017. As per the 2018 Happiness Index, Finland is the 'happiest' country in the world. Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland hold the next top positions. The report was published on 14 March 2018 by UN. The full report can be read at 2018 Report. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2018, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants, was released on March 14 at a launch event at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican.

Table

Overall rank Country or region Score GDP per capita Social support Freedom to make life choices Generosity Perceptions of corruption
1  Finland 7.632 1.305 1.592 0.874 0.681 0.202 0.393
2  Norway 7.594 1.456 1.582 0.861 0.686 0.286 0.340
3  Denmark 7.555 1.351 1.590 0.868 0.683 0.284 0.408
4  Iceland 7.495 1.343 1.644 0.914 0.677 0.353 0.138
5   Switzerland 7.487 1.420 1.549 0.927 0.660 0.256 0.357
6  Netherlands 7.441 1.361 1.488 0.878 0.638 0.333 0.295
7  Canada 7.328 1.330 1.532 0.896 0.653 0.321 0.291
8  New Zealand 7.324 1.268 1.601 0.876 0.669 0.365 0.389
9  Sweden 7.314 1.355 1.501 0.913 0.659 0.285 0.383
10  Australia 7.272 1.340 1.573 0.910 0.647 0.361 0.302
11  United Kingdom 7.190 1.244 1.433 0.888 0.464 0.262 0.082
12  Austria 7.139 1.341 1.504 0.891 0.617 0.242 0.224
13  Costa Rica 7.072 1.010 1.459 0.817 0.632 0.143 0.101
14  Ireland 6.977 1.448 1.583 0.876 0.614 0.307 0.306
15  Germany 6.965 1.340 1.474 0.861 0.586 0.273 0.280
16  Belgium 6.927 1.324 1.483 0.894 0.583 0.188 0.240
17  Luxembourg 6.910 1.576 1.520 0.896 0.632 0.196 0.321
18  United States 6.886 1.398 1.471 0.819 0.547 0.291 0.133
19  Israel 6.814 1.301 1.559 0.883 0.533 0.354 0.272
20  United Arab Emirates 6.774 2.096 0.776 0.670 0.284 0.186 N/A
21  Czech Republic 6.711 1.233 1.489 0.854 0.543 0.064 0.034
22  Malta 6.627 1.270 1.525 0.884 0.645 0.376 0.142
23  France 6.489 1.293 1.466 0.908 0.520 0.098 0.176
24  Mexico 6.488 1.038 1.252 0.761 0.479 0.069 0.095
25  Chile 6.476 1.131 1.331 0.808 0.431 0.197 0.061
26  Taiwan 6.441 1.365 1.436 0.857 0.418 0.151 0.078
27  Panama 6.430 1.112 1.438 0.759 0.597 0.125 0.063
28  Brazil 6.419 0.986 1.474 0.675 0.493 0.110 0.088
29  Argentina 6.388 1.073 1.468 0.744 0.570 0.062 0.054
30  Guatemala 6.382 0.781 1.268 0.608 0.604 0.179 0.071
31  Uruguay 6.379 1.093 1.459 0.771 0.625 0.130 0.155
32  Qatar 6.374 1.649 1.303 0.748 0.654 0.256 0.171
33  Saudi Arabia 6.371 1.379 1.331 0.633 0.509 0.098 0.127
34  Singapore 6.343 1.529 1.451 1.008 0.631 0.261 0.457
35  Malaysia 6.322 1.161 1.258 0.669 0.356 0.311 0.059
36  Spain 6.310 1.251 1.538 0.965 0.449 0.142 0.074
37  Colombia 6.260 0.960 1.439 0.635 0.531 0.099 0.039
38  Trinidad & Tobago 6.192 1.223 1.492 0.564 0.575 0.171 0.019
39  Slovakia 6.173 1.210 1.537 0.776 0.354 0.118 0.014
40  El Salvador 6.167 0.806 1.231 0.639 0.461 0.065 0.082
41