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, which the report also correlates with various (quality of) life factors.

Since 2024, the report has been published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and an independent editorial board. The editorial board consists of the three founding editors, John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey D. Sachs, along with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara Aknin, and Shun Wang.

The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. As of March 2024, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world seven times in a row.

History

In July 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy.

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, drawing international attention. On 2 April 2012, this was followed by the first UN High Level Meeting called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm, 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.

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.

Methods and philosophy

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. The report correlates the life evaluation results with various life factors.

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.

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

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

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).

Happiness of the young and old

Country rankings for the young and the old are quite different, and systematically so, underscoring the fact that convergence between the two halves of Europe has been driven mainly by the rising happiness of the young. Countries ranking highest for the old are generally countries with high overall rankings, but include several where the young have recently fared very poorly.

Country rankings for the under-30s

Overall rank Country or region Life evaluation 1 Lithuania 7.795 2 Israel 7.667 3 Iceland 7.658 4 Serbia 7.658 5 Denmark 7.598 6 Luxembourg 7.301 7 Finland 7.319 8 Romania 7.302 9 Netherlands 7.122 10 Czechia 7.060 11 Costa Rica 7.057 12 Austria 7.029 14 Switzerland 6.955 15 Croatia 6.951 16 Slovenia 6.905 17 Kuwait 6.900 18 El Salvador 6.894 19 Sweden 6.838 20 Australia 6.822 21 Norway 6.818 22 Ireland 6.749 23 Mexico 6.743 24 Kosovo 6.733 25 Belgium 6.725 26 Taiwan 6.719 27 Panama 6.678 28 New Zealand 6.611 29 Nicaragua 6.609 30 Moldova 6.594 31 Uruguay 6.561 32 Latvia 6.523 33 United Kingdom 6.503 34 Bosnia and Herzegovina 6.491 35 Argentina 6.469 36 United Arab Emirates 6.448 37 Hungary 6.442 38 Paraguay 6.421 39 Slovakia 6.411 40 Chile 6.360 41 Bulgaria 6.358 42 Italy 6.346 43 Saudi Arabia 6.324 44 Poland 6.287 45 Estonia 6.284 46 Thailand 6.272 47 Portugal 6.257 48 Germany 6.234 49 France 6.195 50 Guatemala 6.188 51 Montenegro 6.188 52 Cyprus 6.068 53 South Korea 6.060 54 Greece 6.058 55 Singapore 6.048 56 Spain 6.043 57 Honduras 6.030 58 Malta 6.017 59 Canada 5.977 60 Ecuador 5.976 61 Brazil 5.975 62 Dominican Republic 5.973 63 United States 5.968 64 Peru 5.959 65 Malaysia 5.942 66 Vietnam 5.934 67 Albania 5.877 68 North Macedonia 5.866 69 Russia 5.842 70 Kazakhstan 5.841 71 Philippines 5.823 72 Uzbekistan 5.816 73 Armenia 5.816 74 Japan 5.785 75 Bolivia 5.784 76 Indonesia 5.725 77 Colombia 5.714 78 Bahrain 5.707 79 Georgia 5.696 80 China 5.695 81 Libya 5.607 82 Kyrgyzstan 5.568 83 Ukraine 5.463 84 Venezuela 5.455 85 Jamaica 5.422 86 Mauritius 5.369 87 Mongolia 5.364 88 South Africa 5.316 89 Congo 5.304 90 Tajikistan 5.281 91 Congo (Brazzaville) 5.221 92 Iraq 5.216 93 Gabon 5.185 94 Nepal 5.166 95 Algeria 5.158 96 Laos 5.139 97 Gabon 5.106 98 Mozambique 5.080 99 Azerbaijan 5.023 100 Iran 4.975 101 Hong Kong 4.969 102 Morocco 4.923 103 Senegal 4.893 104 Ivory Coast 4.881 105 Turkey 4.879 106 Palestine 4.874 107 Guinea 4.873 108 Laos 4.832 109 Namibia 4.795 110 Cameroon 4.657 111 Pakistan 4.556 112 Nigeria 4.548 113 Kenya 4.505 114 Gambia 4.485 115 Uganda 4.471 116 Cambodia 4.470 117 Liberia 4.422 118 Jordan 4.377 119 Benin 4.372 120 Niger 4.354 121 Burkina Faso 4.341 122 Tunisia 4.289 123 Mauritania 4.269 124 Chad 4.232 125 Myanmar 4.228 126 Sri Lanka 4.214 127 Madagascar 4.186 128 Mali 4.054 129 Togo 3.977 130 India 3.898 131 Bangladesh 3.886 132 Tanzania 3.861 133 Egypt 3.781 134 Ethiopia 3.566 135 Comoros 3.561 136 Botswana 3.502 137 Yemen 3.502 138 Zambia 3.421 139 Malawi 3.383 140 Lesotho 3.341 141 Zimbabwe 3.295 142 Congo 3.245 143 Sierra Leone 3.186 144 Lebanon 2.707 145 Afghanistan 1.721

Annual report topics

The World Happiness Report has been published every year since 2012 (except for 2014).

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, as well as other sources such as the World Values Survey, in some of the reports. The Gallup World Poll questionnaire 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.

2024 World Happiness Report

Descriptions
The 2024 World Happiness Report focused on happiness at different stages of life. Chapter 3 presents global data on child and adolescent wellbeing, whereas Chapters 4 and 5 focus on older age, covering the links between wellbeing and dementia and a deep dive into the wellbeing of older people in India.

2023 World Happiness Report

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

2022 World Happiness Report

Descriptions

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

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. Finland holds the rank of the happiest country in the world for the fourth consecutive year. 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

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. Finland holds the rank of the happiest country in the world for the third consecutive year. It is followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. Afghanistan received the lowest score, with South Sudan and Zimbabwe just above it. 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

Descriptions

The 2019 World Happiness Report focuses community. According to the 2019 Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world, 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

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

2017 World Happiness Report

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

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, 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, 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. 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 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

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 and April 2012 UN High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm, Bhutan's Gross National Happiness 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. 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, 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

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, 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. 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

Descriptions

The 2012 World Happiness Report was issued at the UN High Level Meeting Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm 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, 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. Chapter 3, The Causes of Happiness and Misery is written by Richard Layard, Andrew Clark, and Claudia Senik, 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, Sabine Alkire, 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 in the UK's Office of National Statistics (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, which it issued in 2013.

International rankings

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:

• real GDP per capita
• social support
• healthy life expectancy
• freedom to make life choices
• generosity
• perceptions of corruption

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.

2024 report

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

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 Turkey 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

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

The 2022 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2019–2021.

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

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

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

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 Nicaragua 6.141 0.668 1.319 0.700 0.527 0.208 0.128 42 Poland 6.123 1.176 1.448 0.781 0.546 0.108 0.064 43 Bahrain 6.105 1.338 1.366 0.698 0.594 0.243 0.123 44 Uzbekistan 6.096 0.719 1.584 0.605 0.724 0.328 0.259 45 Kuwait 6.083 1.474 1.301 0.675 0.554 0.167 0.106 46 Thailand 6.072 1.016 1.417 0.707 0.637 0.364 0.029 47 Italy 6.000 1.264 1.501 0.946 0.281 0.137 0.028 48 Ecuador 5.973 0.889 1.330 0.736 0.556 0.114 0.120 49 Belize 5.956 0.807 1.101 0.474 0.593 0.183 0.089 50 Lithuania 5.952 1.197 1.527 0.716 0.350 0.026 0.006 51 Slovenia 5.948 1.219 1.506 0.856 0.633 0.160 0.051 52 Romania 5.945 1.116 1.219 0.726 0.528 0.088 0.001 53 Latvia 5.933 1.148 1.454 0.671 0.363 0.092 0.066 54 Japan 5.915 1.294 1.462 0.988 0.553 0.079 0.150 55 Mauritius 5.891 1.090 1.387 0.684 0.584 0.245 0.050 56 Jamaica 5.890 0.819 1.493 0.693 0.575 0.096 0.031 57 South Korea 5.875 1.266 1.204 0.955 0.244 0.175 0.051 58 Northern Cyprus 5.835 1.229 1.211 0.909 0.495 0.179 0.154 59 Russia 5.810 1.151 1.479 0.599 0.399 0.065 0.025 60 Kazakhstan 5.790 1.143 1.516 0.631 0.454 0.148 0.121 61 Cyprus 5.762 1.229 1.191 0.909 0.423 0.202 0.035 62 Bolivia 5.752 0.751 1.223 0.508 0.606 0.141 0.054 63 Estonia 5.739 1.200 1.532 0.737 0.553 0.086 0.174 64 Paraguay 5.681 0.835 1.522 0.615 0.541 0.162 0.074 65 Peru 5.663 0.934 1.249 0.674 0.530 0.092 0.034 66 Kosovo 5.662 0.855 1.230 0.578 0.448 0.274 0.023 67 Moldova 5.640 0.657 1.301 0.620 0.232 0.171 0.000 68 Turkmenistan 5.636 1.016 1.533 0.517 0.417 0.199 0.037 69 Hungary 5.620 1.171 1.401 0.732 0.259 0.061 0.022 70 Libya 5.566 0.985 1.350 0.553 0.496 0.116 0.148 71 Philippines 5.524 0.775 1.312 0.513 0.643 0.120 0.105 72 Honduras 5.504 0.620 1.205 0.622 0.459 0.197 0.074 73 Belarus 5.483 1.039 1.498 0.700 0.307 0.101 0.154 74 Turkey 5.483 1.148 1.380 0.686 0.324 0.106 0.109 75 Pakistan 5.472 0.652 0.810 0.424 0.334 0.216 0.113 76 Hong Kong 5.430 1.405 1.290 1.030 0.524 0.246 0.291 77 Portugal 5.410 1.188 1.429 0.884 0.562 0.055 0.017 78 Serbia 5.398 0.975 1.369 0.685 0.288 0.134 0.043 79 Greece 5.358 1.154 1.202 0.879 0.131 0.000 0.044 80 Lebanon 5.358 0.965 1.179 0.785 0.503 0.214 0.136 81 Montenegro 5.347 1.017 1.279 0.729 0.259 0.111 0.081 82 Croatia 5.321 1.115 1.161 0.737 0.380 0.120 0.039 83 Dominican Republic 5.302 0.982 1.441 0.614 0.578 0.120 0.106 84 Algeria 5.295 0.979 1.154 0.687 0.077 0.055 0.135 85 Morocco 5.254 0.779 0.797 0.669 0.460 0.026 0.074 86 China 5.246 0.989 1.142 0.799 0.597 0.029 0.103 87 Azerbaijan 5.201 1.024 1.161 0.603 0.430 0.031 0.176 88 Tajikistan 5.199 0.474 1.166 0.598 0.292 0.187 0.034 89 Macedonia 5.185 0.959 1.239 0.691 0.394 0.173 0.052 90 Jordan 5.161 0.822 1.265 0.645 0.468 0.130 0.134 91 Nigeria 5.155 0.689 1.172 0.048 0.462 0.201 0.032 92 Kyrgyzstan 5.131 0.530 1.416 0.594 0.540 0.281 0.035 93 Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.129 0.915 1.078 0.758 0.280 0.216 0.000 94 Mongolia 5.125 0.914 1.517 0.575 0.395 0.253 0.032 95 Vietnam 5.103 0.715 1.365 0.702 0.618 0.177 0.079 96 Indonesia 5.093 0.899 1.215 0.522 0.538 0.484 0.018 97 Bhutan 5.082 0.796 1.335 0.527 0.541 0.364 0.171 98 Somalia 4.982 0.000 0.712 0.115 0.674 0.238 0.282 99 Cameroon 4.975 0.535 0.891 0.182 0.454 0.183 0.043 100 Bulgaria 4.933 1.054 1.515 0.712 0.359 0.064 0.009 101 Nepal 4.880 0.425 1.228 0.539 0.526 0.302 0.078 102 Venezuela 4.806 0.996 1.469 0.657 0.133 0.056 0.052 103 Gabon 4.758 1.036 1.164 0.404 0.356 0.032 0.052 104 Palestinian Territories 4.743 0.642 1.217 0.602 0.266 0.086 0.076 105 South Africa 4.724 0.940 1.410 0.330 0.516 0.103 0.056 106 Iran 4.707 1.059 0.771 0.691 0.459 0.282 0.129 107 Ivory Coast 4.671 0.541 0.872 0.080 0.467 0.146 0.103 108 Ghana 4.657 0.592 0.896 0.337 0.499 0.212 0.029 109 Senegal 4.631 0.429 1.117 0.433 0.406 0.138 0.082 110 Laos 4.623 0.720 1.034 0.441 0.626 0.230 0.174 111 Tunisia 4.592 0.900 0.906 0.690 0.271 0.040 0.063 112 Albania 4.586 0.916 0.817 0.790 0.419 0.149 0.032 113 Sierra Leone 4.571 0.256 0.813 0.000 0.355 0.238 0.053 114 Congo (Brazzaville) 4.559 0.682 0.811 0.343 0.514 0.091 0.077 115 Bangladesh 4.500 0.532 0.850 0.579 0.580 0.153 0.144 116 Sri Lanka 4.471 0.918 1.314 0.672 0.585 0.307 0.050 117 Iraq 4.456 1.010 0.971 0.536 0.304 0.148 0.095 118 Mali 4.447 0.370 1.233 0.152 0.367 0.139 0.056 119 Namibia 4.441 0.874 1.281 0.365 0.519 0.051 0.064 120 Cambodia 4.433 0.549 1.088 0.457 0.696 0.256 0.065 121 Burkina Faso 4.424 0.314 1.097 0.254 0.312 0.175 0.128 122 Egypt 4.419 0.885 1.025 0.553 0.312 0.092 0.107 123 Mozambique 4.417 0.198 0.902 0.173 0.531 0.206 0.158 124 Kenya 4.410 0.493 1.048 0.454 0.504 0.352 0.055 125 Zambia 4.377 0.562 1.047 0.295 0.503 0.221 0.082 126 Mauritania 4.356 0.557 1.245 0.292 0.129 0.134 0.093 127 Ethiopia 4.350 0.308 0.950 0.391 0.452 0.220 0.146 128 Georgia 4.340 0.853 0.592 0.643 0.375 0.038 0.215 129 Armenia 4.321 0.816 0.990 0.666 0.260 0.077 0.028 130 Myanmar 4.308 0.682 1.174 0.429 0.580 0.598 0.178 131 Chad 4.301 0.358 0.907 0.053 0.189 0.181 0.060 132 Congo (Kinshasa) 4.245 0.069 1.136 0.204 0.312 0.197 0.052 133 India 4.190 0.721 0.747 0.485 0.539 0.172 0.093 134 Niger 4.166 0.131 0.867 0.221 0.390 0.175 0.099 135 Uganda 4.161 0.322 1.090 0.237 0.450 0.259 0.061 136 Benin 4.141 0.378 0.372 0.240 0.440 0.163 0.067 137 Sudan 4.139 0.605 1.240 0.312 0.016 0.134 0.082 138 Ukraine 4.103 0.793 1.413 0.609 0.163 0.187 0.011 139 Togo 3.999 0.259 0.474 0.253 0.434 0.158 0.101 140 Guinea 3.964 0.344 0.792 0.211 0.394 0.185 0.094 141 Lesotho 3.808 0.472 1.215 0.079 0.423 0.116 0.112 142 Angola 3.795 0.730 1.125 0.269 0.000 0.079 0.061 143 Madagascar 3.774 0.262 0.908 0.402 0.221 0.155 0.049 144 Zimbabwe 3.692 0.357 1.094 0.248 0.406 0.132 0.099 145 Afghanistan 3.632 0.332 0.537 0.255 0.085 0.191 0.036 146 Botswana 3.590 1.017 1.174 0.417 0.557 0.042 0.092 147 Malawi 3.587 0.186 0.541 0.306 0.531 0.210 0.080 148 Haiti 3.582 0.315 0.714 0.289 0.025 0.392 0.104 149 Liberia 3.495 0.076 0.858 0.267 0.419 0.206 0.030 150 Syria 3.462 0.689 0.382 0.539 0.088 0.376 0.144 151 Rwanda 3.408 0.332 0.896 0.400 0.636 0.200 0.444 152 Yemen 3.355 0.442 1.073 0.343 0.244 0.083 0.064 153 Tanzania 3.303 0.455 0.991 0.381 0.481 0.270 0.097 154 South Sudan 3.254 0.337 0.608 0.177 0.112 0.224 0.106 155 Central African Republic 3.083 0.024 0.000 0.010 0.305 0.218 0.038 156 Burundi 2.905 0.091 0.627 0.145 0.065 0.149 0.076

2017 report

The 2017 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2014–2016. For that timespan, Norway was the overall 'happiest' country in the world, even though oil prices had dropped. Close behind were Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland in a tight pack. Four of the top five countries follow the Nordic model. All the top ten countries had high scores in the six categories. The ranked follow-on countries in the top ten are: Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden.

Table

Table of data for 2017: Overall Rank Change in rank Country Score Change in score GDP per capita Social support Healthy life expectancy Freedom to make life choices Generosity Trust Residual 1 3 Norway 7.537 0.039 1.616 1.534 0.797 0.635 0.362 0.316 2.277 2 1 Denmark 7.522 0.004 1.482 1.551 0.793 0.626 0.355 0.401 2.314 3 Iceland 7.504 0.003 1.481 1.611 0.834 0.627 0.476 0.154 2.323 4 2 Switzerland 7.494 0.015 1.565 1.517 0.858 0.620 0.291 0.367 2.277 5 Finland 7.469 0.056 1.444 1.540 0.809 0.618 0.245 0.383 2.430 6 1 Netherlands 7.377 0.038 1.504 1.429 0.811 0.585 0.470 0.283 2.295 7 1 Canada 7.316 0.088 1.479 1.481 0.835 0.611 0.436 0.287 2.187 8 New Zealand 7.314 0.020 1.406 1.548 0.817 0.614 0.500 0.383 2.046 9 Australia 7.284 0.029 1.484 1.510 0.844 0.602 0.478 0.301 2.065 10 Sweden 7.284 0.007 1.494 1.478 0.831 0.613 0.385 0.384 2.098 11 Israel 7.213 0.054 1.375 1.376 0.838 0.406 0.330 0.085 2.802 12 2 Costa Rica 7.079 0.008 1.110 1.416 0.760 0.580 0.215 0.100 2.899 13 1 Austria 7.006 0.113 1.487 1.460 0.815 0.568 0.316 0.221 2.139 14 1 United States 6.993 0.111 1.546 1.420 0.774 0.506 0.393 0.136 2.218 15 4 Ireland 6.977 0.070 1.536 1.558 0.810 0.573 0.428 0.298 1.774 16 Germany 6.951 0.043 1.488 1.473 0.799 0.563 0.336 0.277 2.016 17 1 Belgium 6.891 0.038 1.464 1.462 0.818 0.540 0.232 0.251 2.124 18 2 Luxembourg 6.863 0.008 1.742 1.458 0.845 0.597 0.283 0.319 1.620 19 4 United Kingdom 6.714 0.011 1.442 1.496 0.805 0.508 0.493 0.265 1.704 20 4 Chile 6.652 0.053 1.253 1.284 0.819 0.377 0.327 0.082 2.510 21 7 United Arab Emirates 6.648 0.075 1.626 1.266 0.727 0.608 0.361 0.324 1.735 22 5 Brazil 6.635 0.317 1.107 1.431 0.617 0.437 0.162 0.111 2.769 23 4 Czech Republic 6.609 0.013 1.353 1.434 0.754 0.491 0.088 0.037 2.452 24 2 Argentina 6.599 0.051 1.185 1.440 0.695 0.495 0.109 0.060 2.614 25 4 Mexico 6.578 0.200 1.153 1.211 0.710 0.413 0.121 0.133 2.837 26 4 Singapore 6.572 0.167 1.692 1.354 0.949 0.550 0.346 0.464 1.216 27 3 Malta 6.527 0.039 1.343 1.488 0.822 0.589 0.575 0.153 1.557 28 1 Uruguay 6.454 0.091 1.218 1.412 0.719 0.579 0.175 0.178 2.172 29 10 Guatemala 6.454 0.130 0.872 1.256 0.540 0.531 0.283 0.077 2.894 30 5 Panama 6.452 0.249 1.234 1.373 0.706 0.550 0.211 0.071 2.307 31 1 France 6.442 0.036 1.431 1.388 0.844 0.470 0.130 0.173 2.006 32 1 Thailand 6.424 0.050 1.128 1.426 0.647 0.580 0.572 0.032 2.040 33 2 Taiwan 6.422 0.043 1.434 1.385 0.794 0.361 0.258 0.064 2.127 34 3 Spain 6.403 0.042 1.384 1.532 0.889 0.409 0.190 0.071 1.928 35 1 Qatar 6.375 1.871 1.274 0.710 0.604 0.330 0.439 1.145 36 5 Colombia 6.357 0.124 1.071 1.402 0.595 0.477 0.149 0.047 2.616 37 3 Saudi Arabia 6.344 0.035 1.531 1.287 0.590 0.450 0.148 0.273 2.065 38 5 Trinidad and Tobago 6.168 1.361 1.380 0.520 0.519 0.325 0.009 2.053 39 2 Kuwait 6.105 0.134 1.633 1.260 0.632 0.496 0.228 0.215 1.640 40 5 Slovakia 6.098 0.020 1.325 1.505 0.713 0.296 0.137 0.024 2.098 41 1 Bahrain 6.087 0.131 1.488 1.323 0.653 0.537 0.173 0.257 1.656 42 5 Malaysia 6.084 0.079 1.291 1.285 0.619 0.402 0.417 0.066 2.004 — — Europe 6.080 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 43 5 Nicaragua 6.071 0.079 0.737 1.287 0.653 0.448 0.302 0.131 2.514 44 7 Ecuador 6.008 0.032 1.001 1.286 0.686 0.455 0.150 0.140 2.290 45 1 El Salvador 6.003 0.065 0.910 1.182 0.596 0.432 0.078 0.090 2.715 46 11 Poland 5.973 0.138 1.292 1.446 0.699 0.520 0.158 0.059 1.798 47 2 Uzbekistan 5.971 0.016 0.786 1.549 0.498 0.658 0.416 0.247 1.817 48 2 Italy 5.964 0.013 1.395 1.445 0.853 0.256 0.173 0.028 1.813 49 7 Russia 5.963 0.107 1.282 1.469 0.547 0.374 0.052 0.033 2.206 50 2 Belize 5.956 0.908 1.081 0.450 0.548 0.240 0.097 2.632 51 2 Japan 5.920 0.001 1.417 1.436 0.913 0.506 0.121 0.164 1.363 52 8 Lithuania 5.902 0.089 1.315 1.474 0.629 0.234 0.010 0.012 2.228 53 15 Algeria 5.872 0.483 1.092 1.146 0.618 0.233 0.069 0.146 2.568 54 14 Latvia 5.850 0.290 1.261 1.405 0.639 0.326 0.153 0.074 1.994 55 Moldova 5.838 0.059 0.729 1.252 0.589 0.241 0.209 0.010 2.808 56 2 South Korea 5.838 0.003 1.402 1.128 0.900 0.258 0.207 0.063 1.880 57 14 Romania 5.825 0.297 1.218 1.150 0.685 0.457 0.134 0.004 2.177 58 1 Bolivia 5.823 0.001 0.834 1.228 0.474 0.559 0.226 0.060 2.443 59 6 Turkmenistan 5.822 0.164 1.131 1.493 0.438 0.418 0.250 0.259 1.833 60 6 Kazakhstan 5.819 0.100 1.285 1.384 0.606 0.437 0.202 0.119 1.785 61 1 North Cyprus 5.810 0.039 1.347 1.186 0.835 0.471 0.267 0.155 1.549 62 1 Slovenia 5.758 0.010 1.341 1.453 0.791 0.573 0.243 0.045 1.313 63 1 Peru 5.715 0.028 1.035 1.219 0.630 0.450 0.127 0.047 2.207 64 2 Mauritius 5.629 0.019 1.189 1.210 0.638 0.491 0.361 0.042 1.698 65 4 Cyprus 5.621 0.075 1.356 1.131 0.845 0.355 0.271 0.041 1.621 66 6 Estonia 5.611 0.094 1.321 1.477 0.695 0.479 0.099 0.183 1.358 67 6 Belarus 5.569 0.233 1.157 1.445 0.638 0.295 0.155 0.156 1.723 68 1 Libya 5.525 0.090 1.102 1.358 0.520 0.466 0.152 0.093 1.835 69 9 Turkey 5.500 0.111 1.198 1.338 0.638 0.301 0.047 0.100 1.879 70 Paraguay 5.493 0.045 0.933 1.507 0.579 0.474 0.224 0.091 1.685 71 4 Hong Kong 5.472 0.014 1.552 1.263 0.943 0.491 0.374 0.294 0.555 72 10 Philippines 5.430 0.151 0.858 1.254 0.468 0.585 0.194 0.099 1.973 73 13 Serbia 5.395 0.218 1.069 1.258 0.651 0.209 0.220 0.041 1.947 74 6 Jordan 5.336 0.033 0.991 1.239 0.605 0.418 0.172 0.120 1.791 75 16 Hungary 5.324 0.179 1.286 1.343 0.688 0.176 0.078 0.037 1.716 76 3 Jamaica 5.311 0.199 0.926 1.368 0.641 0.474 0.234 0.055 1.612 — — World 5.305 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 77 3 Croatia 5.293 0.195 1.223 0.968 0.701 0.256 0.248 0.043 1.854 78 1 Kosovo 5.279 0.122 0.951 1.138 0.541 0.260 0.320 0.057 2.011 79 4 China 5.273 0.028 1.081 1.161 0.741 0.473 0.029 0.023 1.765 80 12 Pakistan 5.269 0.137 0.727 0.673 0.402 0.235 0.315 0.124 2.792 81 2 Indonesia 5.262 0.052 0.996 1.274 0.492 0.443 0.612 0.015 1.429 82 38 Venezuela 5.250 0.834 1.128 1.431 0.617 0.154 0.065 0.064 1.789 83 5 Montenegro 5.237 0.076 1.121 1.238 0.667 0.195 0.198 0.088 1.729 84 6 Morocco 5.235 0.084 0.878 0.775 0.598 0.408 0.032 0.088 2.456 85 4 Azerbaijan 7.342 0.057 1.154 1.152 0.541 0.398 0.045 0.181 1.762 86 3 Dominican Republic 5.230 0.075 1.079 1.402 0.575 0.553 0.187 0.114 1.319 87 12 Greece 5.227 0.194 1.289 1.239 0.810 0.096 0.000 0.043 1.749 88 5 Lebanon 5.225 0.096 1.075 1.130 0.735 0.289 0.264 0.038 1.695 89 5 Portugal 5.195 0.072 1.315 1.367 0.796 0.498 0.095 0.016 1.108 90 3 Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.182 0.019 0.982 1.069 0.705 0.204 0.329 0.000 1.892 91 13 Honduras 5.181 0.310 0.731 1.144 0.583 0.348 0.236 0.073 2.066 92 3 Macedonia 5.175 0.054 1.065 1.208 0.645 0.326 0.254 0.060 1.617 93 17 Somalia 5.151 0.289 0.023 0.721 0.114 0.602 0.292 0.282 3.117 94 2 Vietnam 5.074 0.013 0.789 1.277 0.652 0.571 0.235 0.088 1.462 95 8 Nigeria 5.074 0.199 0.784 1.216 0.057 0.395 0.231 0.026 2.365 96 4 Tajikistan 5.041 0.045 0.525 1.271 0.529 0.472 0.249 0.146 1.849 97 13 Bhutan 5.011 0.185 0.885 1.340 0.496 0.502 0.474 0.173 1.140 98 13 Kyrgyzstan 5.004 0.181 0.596 1.394 0.553 0.455 0.429 0.039 1.537 99 8 Nepal 4.962 0.169 0.480 1.179 0.504 0.440 0.394 0.073 1.891 100 1 Mongolia 4.955 0.048 1.027 1.493 0.558 0.394 0.338 0.033 1.111 101 15 South Africa 4.829 0.370 1.055 1.385 0.187 0.479 0.139 0.073 1.511 102 4 Tunisia 4.805 0.240 1.007 0.868 0.613 0.290 0.050 0.087 1.890 103 5 Palestinian Territories 4.775 0.021 0.716 1.156 0.566 0.255 0.114 0.089 1.879 104 16 Egypt 4.735 0.373 0.990 0.997 0.520 0.282 0.129 0.114 1.702 105 24 Bulgaria 4.714 0.497 1.161 1.434 0.708 0.289 0.113 0.011 0.996 106 5 Sierra Leone 4.709 0.074 0.368 0.984 0.006 0.319 0.293 0.071 2.668 107 7 Cameroon 4.695 0.182 0.564 0.946 0.133 0.430 0.236 0.051 2.334 108 3 Iran 4.692 0.121 1.157 0.712 0.639 0.249 0.387 0.049 1.499 109 Albania 4.644 0.011 0.996 0.804 0.731 0.381 0.201 0.040 1.490 110 Bangladesh 4.608 0.035 0.587 0.735 0.533 0.478 0.172 0.124 1.979 111 2 Namibia 4.574 0.964 1.098 0.339 0.520 0.077 0.093 1.482 112 10 Kenya 4.553 0.197 0.560 1.068 0.310 0.453 0.445 0.065 1.652 113 N/A Mozambique 4.550 N/A 0.234 0.871 0.107 0.481 0.322 0.179 2.356 114 5 Myanmar 4.545 0.150 0.367 1.123 0.398 0.514 0.838 0.189 1.115 115 13 Senegal 4.535 0.316 0.479 1.180 0.409 0.378 0.183 0.115 1.790 116 10 Zambia 4.514 0.281 0.636 1.003 0.258 0.462 0.250 0.078 1.827 117 5 Iraq 4.497 0.078 1.103 0.979 0.501 0.289 0.200 0.107 1.319 118 16 Gabon 4.465 0.344 1.198 1.156 0.357 0.312 0.044 0.076 1.323 119 4 Ethiopia 4.460 0.048 0.339 0.865 0.353 0.409 0.313 0.165 2.016 120 3 Sri Lanka 4.440 0.025 1.010 1.260 0.625 0.561 0.491 0.074 0.419 121 Armenia 4.376 0.016 0.901 1.007 0.638 0.198 0.083 0.027 1.521 122 4 India 4.315 0.089 0.792 0.754 0.455 0.470 0.232 0.092 1.519 123 7 Mauritania 4.292 0.091 0.648 1.272 0.285 0.096 0.202 0.137 1.652 124 1 Congo (Brazzaville) 4.291 0.019 0.809 0.832 0.290 0.435 0.121 0.080 1.724 125 1 Georgia 4.286 0.034 0.951 0.571 0.650 0.309 0.054 0.252 1.500 126 1 Congo (Kinshasa) 4.280 0.044 0.092 1.229 0.191 0.236 0.246 0.060 2.225 127 8 Mali 4.190 0.117 0.476 1.281 0.169 0.307 0.183 0.105 1.668 128 11 Ivory Coast 4.180 0.264 0.603 0.905 0.049 0.448 0.201 0.130 1.845 129 11 Cambodia 4.168 0.261 0.602 1.006 0.430 0.633 0.386 0.068 1.043 130 3 Sudan 4.139 0.660 1.214 0.291 0.015 0.182 0.090 1.687 131 7 Ghana 4.120 0.156 0.667 0.874 0.296 0.423 0.257 0.025 1.578 132 9 Ukraine 4.096 0.228 0.895 1.395 0.576 0.123 0.270 0.023 0.814 133 13 Uganda 4.081 0.342 0.381 1.130 0.218 0.443 0.326 0.057 1.526 134 11 Burkina Faso 4.032 0.293 0.350 1.043 0.216 0.324 0.251 0.120 1.727 135 7 Niger 4.028 0.172 0.162 0.993 0.269 0.364 0.229 0.139 1.874 136 4 Malawi 3.970 0.186 0.233 0.513 0.315 0.467 0.287 0.073 2.082 137 7 Chad 3.936 0.173 0.438 0.954 0.041 0.162 0.216 0.054 2.071 138 7 Zimbabwe 3.875 0.318 0.376 1.083 0.197 0.336 0.189 0.095 1.598 139 N/A Lesotho 3.808 N/A 0.521 1.190 0.000 0.391 0.157 0.119 1.430 140 1 Angola 3.795 0.071 0.858 1.104 0.050 0.000 0.098 0.070 1.614 141 13 Afghanistan 3.794 0.434 0.401 0.582 0.181 0.106 0.312 0.061 2.151 142 5 Botswana 3.766 0.208 1.122 1.222 0.342 0.505 0.099 0.099 0.378 143 10 Benin 3.657 0.173 0.431 0.435 0.210 0.426 0.208 0.061 1.886 144 4 Madagascar 3.644 0.051 0.306 0.913 0.375 0.189 0.209 0.067 1.585 145 9 Haiti 3.603 0.425 0.369 0.640 0.277 0.030 0.489 0.100 1.697 146 1 Yemen 3.593 0.131 0.592 0.935 0.310 0.249 0.104 0.057 1.346 147 4 South Sudan 3.591 0.241 0.397 0.601 0.163 0.147 0.286 0.117 1.880 148 2 Liberia 3.533 0.089 0.119 0.872 0.230 0.333 0.267 0.039 1.673 149 2 Guinea 3.507 0.100 0.245 0.791 0.194 0.349 0.265 0.111 1.552 150 5 Togo 3.495 0.192 0.305 0.432 0.247 0.380 0.197 0.096 1.837 151 1 Rwanda 3.471 0.044 0.369 0.946 0.326 0.582 0.253 0.455 0.540 152 4 Syria 3.462 0.393 0.777 0.396 0.501 0.082 0.494 0.151 1.062 153 4 Tanzania 3.349 0.317 0.511 1.042 0.365 0.390 0.354 0.066 0.621 154 3 Burundi 2.905 0.092 0.630 0.152 0.060 0.204 0.084 1.683 155 N/A Central African Republic 2.693 N/A 0.000 0.000 0.019 0.271 0.281 0.057 2.066

2016 report

The 2016 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2013–2015.

Table

Legend:   Explained by: GDP per capita   Explained by: Social support   Explained by: Healthy life expectancy   Explained by: Freedom to make life choices   Explained by: Generosity   Trust or absence of corruption, as explained by the publicly perceived absence of corruption in government and business Italics: States with limited recognition and disputed territories Overall Rank Country Score Change Over Prior Year GDP per capita Social support Healthy life expectancy Freedom to make life choices Generosity Trust 1 Denmark 7.526 -0.401 2 Switzerland 7.509 0.035 3 Iceland 7.501 0.000 4 Norway 7.498 0.082 5 Finland 7.413 -0.259 6 Canada 7.404 -0.041 7 Netherlands 7.339 -0.119 8 New Zealand 7.334 -0.097 9 Australia 7.313 0.002 10 Sweden 7.291 -0.017 11 Israel 7.267 0.258 12 Austria 7.119 -0.003 13 United States 7.104 -0.261 14 Costa Rica 7.087 -0.171 15 Puerto Rico 7.039 0.446 16 Germany 6.994 0.486 17 Brazil 6.952 0.474 18 Belgium 6.929 -0.311 19 Ireland 6.907 -0.238 20 Luxembourg 6.871 0.000 21 Mexico 6.778 0.225 22 Singapore 6.739 0.099 23 United Kingdom 6.725 -0.161 24 Chile 6.705 0.826 25 Panama 6.701 0.191 26 Argentina 6.650 0.457 27 Czech Republic 6.596 0.126 28 United Arab Emirates 6.573 -0.161 29 Uruguay 6.545 0.804 30 Malta 6.488 0.000 31 Colombia 6.481 0.399 32 France 6.478 -0.336 33 Thailand 6.474 0.631 34 Saudi Arabia 6.379 -0.794 35 Taiwan 6.379 0.190 36 Qatar 6.375 0.000 37 Spain 6.361 -0.711 38 Algeria 6.355 0.000 39 Guatemala 6.324 0.211 40 Suriname 6.269 0.000 41 Kuwait 6.239 0.164 42 Bahrain 6.218 0.000 43 Trinidad and Tobago 6.168 0.336 44 Venezuela 6.084 -0.762 45 Slovakia 6.078 0.814 46 El Salvador 6.068 0.572 47 Malaysia 6.005 -0.132 48 Nicaragua 5.992 1.285 49 Uzbekistan 5.987 0.755 50 Italy 5.977 -0.735 51 Ecuador 5.976 0.966 52 Belize 5.956 -0.495 53 Japan 5.921 -0.446 54 Kazakhstan 5.919 0.322 55 Moldova 5.897 0.959 56 Russia 5.856 0.738 57 Poland 5.835 0.098 58 South Korea 5.835 0.295 59 Bolivia 5.822 0.322 60 Lithuania 5.813 -0.069 61 Belarus 5.802 0.165 62 Northern Cyprus 5.771 0.000 63 Slovenia 5.768 -0.044 64 Peru 5.743 0.730 65 Turkmenistan 5.658 0.000 66 Mauritius 5.648 0.000 67 Libya 5.615 0.000 68 Latvia 5.560 0.872 69 Cyprus 5.546 -0.692 70 Paraguay 5.538 0.536 71 Romania 5.528 0.310 72 Estonia 5.517 0.165 73 Jamaica 5.510 -0.698 74 Croatia 5.488 -0.333 75 Hong Kong 5.458 -0.053 76 Somalia 5.440 0.000 77 Kosovo 5.401 0.298 78 Turkey 5.389 0.216 79 Indonesia 5.314 0.295 80 Jordan 5.303 -0.638 81 Azerbaijan 5.291 0.642 82 Philippines 5.279 0.425 83 People's Republic of China 5.245 0.525 84 Bhutan 5.196 0.000 85 Kyrgyzstan 5.185 0.515 86 Serbia 5.177 0.426 87 Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.163 0.263 88 Montenegro 5.161 -0.035 89 Dominican Republic 5.155 0.070 90 Morocco 5.151 0.000 91 Hungary 5.145 0.070 92 Pakistan 5.132 -0.374 93 Lebanon 5.129 0.059 94 Portugal 5.123 -0.282 95 North Macedonia 5.121 0.627 96 Vietnam 5.061 -0.299 97 Somaliland region 5.057 0.000 98 Tunisia 5.045 0.000 99 Greece 5.033 -1.294 100 Tajikistan 4.996 0.474 101 Mongolia 4.907 0.298 102 Laos 4.876 -0.344 103 Nigeria 4.875 0.075 104 Honduras 4.871 -0.375 105 Iran 4.813 -0.507 106 Zambia 4.795 0.381 107 Nepal 4.793 0.135 108 Palestinian Territories 4.754 0.321 109 Albania 4.655 0.021 110 Bangladesh 4.643 0.170 111 Sierra Leone 4.635 1.028 112 Iraq 4.575 0.000 113 Namibia 4.574 -0.312 114 Cameroon 4.513 0.413 115 Ethiopia 4.508 0.000 116 South Africa 4.459 -0.686 117 Sri Lanka 4.415 0.037 118 India 4.404 -0.750 119 Myanmar 4.395 0.000 120 Egypt 4.362 -0.996 121 Armenia 4.360 -0.226 122 Kenya 4.356 -0.044 123 Ukraine 4.324 -0.701 124 Ghana 4.276 -0.600 125 Republic of the Congo 4.272 0.000 126 Georgia 4.252 0.561 127 Democratic Republic of the Congo 4.236 0.000 128 Senegal 4.219 -0.328 129 Bulgaria 4.217 0.373 130 Mauritania 4.201 0.052 131 Zimbabwe 4.193 0.639 132 Malawi 4.156 -0.205 133 Sudan 4.139 0.000 134 Gabon 4.121 0.000 135 Mali 4.073 0.059 136 Haiti 4.028 0.274 137 Botswana 3.974 -0.765 138 Comoros 3.956 0.000 139 Ivory Coast 3.916 0.000 140 Cambodia 3.907 0.045 141 Angola 3.866 0.000 142 Niger 3.856 -0.144 143 South Sudan 3.832 0.000 144 Chad 3.763 -0.025 145 Burkina Faso 3.739 -0.170 146 Uganda 3.739 -0.356 147 Yemen 3.724 -0.754 148 Madagascar 3.695 -0.285 149 Tanzania 3.666 -0.460 150 Liberia 3.622 -0.080 151 Guinea 3.607 0.000 152 Rwanda 3.515 -0.700 153 Benin 3.484 0.154 154 Afghanistan 3.360 0.000 155 Togo 3.303 0.100 156 Syria 3.069 0.000 157 Burundi 2.905 0.000

2013 report

The 2013 report features the happiness score averaged over the years 2010–2012.

Table

Rank Country Happiness 1 Denmark 7.693 2 Norway 7.655 3 Switzerland 7.650 4 Netherlands 7.512 5 Sweden 7.480 6 Canada 7.477 7 Finland 7.389 8 Austria 7.369 9 Iceland 7.355 10 Australia 7.350 11 Israel 7.301 12 Costa Rica 7.257 13 New Zealand 7.221 14 United Arab Emirates 7.144 15 Panama 7.143 16 Mexico 7.088 17 United States 7.082 18 Ireland 7.076 19 Luxembourg 7.054 20 Venezuela 7.039 21 Belgium 6.967 22 United Kingdom 6.883 23 Oman 6.853 24 Brazil 6.849 25 France 6.764 26 Germany 6.672 27 Qatar 6.666 28 Chile 6.587 29 Argentina 6.562 30 Singapore 6.546 31 Trinidad and Tobago 6.519 32 Kuwait 6.515 33 Saudi Arabia 6.480 34 Cyprus 6.466 35 Colombia 6.416 36 Thailand 6.371 37 Uruguay 6.355 38 Spain 6.322 39 Czech Republic 6.290 40 Suriname 6.269 41 South Korea 6.267 42 Taiwan 6.221 43 Japan 6.064 44 Slovenia 6.060 45 Italy 6.021 46 Slovakia 5.969 47 Guatemala 5.965 48 Malta 5.964 49 Ecuador 5.865 50 Bolivia 5.857 51 Poland 5.822 52 El Salvador 5.809 53 Moldova 5.791 54 Paraguay 5.779 55 Peru 5.776 56 Malaysia 5.760 57 Kazakhstan 5.671 58 Croatia 5.661 59 Turkmenistan 5.628 60 Uzbekistan 5.623 61 Angola 5.589 62 Albania 5.550 63 Vietnam 5.533 64 Hong Kong 5.523 65 Nicaragua 5.507 66 Belarus 5.504 67 Mauritius 5.477 68 Russia 5.464 69 North Cyprus 5.463 70 Greece 5.435 71 Lithuania 5.426 72 Estonia 5.426 73 Algeria 5.422 74 Jordan 5.414 75 Jamaica 5.374 76 Indonesia 5.348 77 Turkey 5.345 78 Libya 5.340 79 Bahrain 5.312 80 Montenegro 5.299 81 Pakistan 5.292 82 Nigeria 5.248 83 Kosovo 5.222 84 Honduras 5.142 85 Portugal 5.101

Criticism

Metrics

Critics have pointed out the difference between evaluations and experiences of well-being. For instance Colombia came 37th in the 2018 World Happiness Report rankings but first by daily emotional experience in Gallup's Positive Experience Index. The inconsistencies in the results of different happiness measurement surveys have also been noted, for instance, a Pew survey of 43 countries in 2014 (which excluded most of Europe) had Mexico, Israel, and Venezuela finishing first, second and third. Others point out that the variables of interest used by the World Happiness Report are more appropriate for measuring national-level rather than individual-level happiness.

Methodology

The World Happiness Report's use of a single-item indicator of subjective well-being is fundamentally different from more traditional Index approaches which use a range of indicators such as the United Nations' Human Development Index, the OECD Better Life Index of 2011, or the Social Progress Index of 2013. There has also been an ongoing debate regarding single-item and multi-item scales as measures of life satisfaction.

The idea that subjective well-being can be captured by a survey has also been contested by economists, who have identified that people’s assessments of their happiness can be affected by how, for example, their country’s education system grades exams, and that survey questions on subjective well-being are affected by response styles.

Legitimacy

In 2014, British journalist Michael Booth questioned the legitimacy of the Nordic countries' freedom and happiness rankings in his book The Almost Nearly Perfect People. In it, he criticizes Denmark's environmental footprint and notes that the taxes and personal debt levels among its citizens are the highest in the world. He also writes that in Finland, the most common type of prescription medications in the country are antipsychotic. He also points out the country's high alcohol consumption, murder, and suicide rates. Further, he argues that he doesn't think the Danes were the world's happiest people, but instead described them as the "most satisfied".

See also

• Bhutan GNH Index
• Broad measures of economic progress
• Disability-adjusted life year
• Economics
• Gender-related Development Index
• Genuine Progress Indicator
• Green national product
• Gross National Happiness
• Happiness economics
• Happy Planet Index
• Human Development Index
• International Happiness Day
• Legatum Prosperity Index
• Leisure satisfaction
• OECD Better Life Index
• Post-materialism
• Progressive utilization theory
• Psychometrics
• Subjective life satisfaction
• WIN/GIA
• Where-to-be-born Index
• Wikiprogress
• World Values Survey

External links

• Official website
• Sustainable Development Solutions Network
• The Guardian 20 March 2017
• Interactive map of countries by happiness score as well as GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption 2018