The latest World Happiness Report explores happiness rankings, trust, and generosity's role in wellbeing.
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 | The voice of the world in numbers | | | March 20, 2025 | | | Welcome to Front Page, where we break down Gallup's latest insights on our constantly evolving world. Here are the six insights you shouldn't miss this week: | | | | This week, we mark the launch of the World Happiness Report with a special edition of Front Page, exploring the latest global trends in wellbeing. From the world's happiest and least happy nations to the powerful effects of trust and generosity, the report highlights key drivers of life satisfaction. | | | | | | | 1. The Happiest Places on Earth | | | | The Data: Finland ranks as the happiest country in the world, as it has since 2018, followed by fellow Nordic countries Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. The Trend: The Nordic countries consistently top the rankings, buoyed by strong social trust and quality of life measures. The U.S., which dropped out of the top 20 for the first time last year, ranks 24th out of 147 in the latest report. | 2. The Least Happy Places on Earth | | | | The Data: Afghanistan ranks as the least happy country with a life evaluation score of 1.364 — the lowest average score ever for any country. The Context: Countries with ongoing conflict, economic hardship and low trust in institutions tend to rank the lowest in happiness. | 3. Mapping Global Happiness | | | | The Data: A global heatmap of happiness levels shows that Latin America, despite economic challenges, reports relatively high life evaluations, while scores across much of sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia are on the lower end of the spectrum. The West: In general, the Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, whereas four have seen significant increases. Three Western countries' happiness scores dropped by more than half a point on the 0-10 scale, placing them among the 15 countries with the biggest happiness slides. | 4. Drivers of Happiness | | | | The Data: Acts of benevolence — helping strangers, donating money and volunteering time — and expecting kindness from others boosts life satisfaction more than financial gains. Believing your lost wallet would be returned lifts life satisfaction by over three-quarters of a point (+0.77), almost twice the effect of benevolent acts (+0.43) and more than seven times the effect of doubling one's income (+0.10). Flip Side: Being kind and expecting kindness from others are stronger predictors of happiness than avoiding major negative events like crime victimization (-0.16), mental health issues (-0.25) or unemployment (-0.40). | 5. Are Nordic Countries the Best Place to Lose a Wallet? | | | | The Data: Most of the 10 happiest countries also rank highly for their belief that their wallets would be returned to them if they were lost, but four of the 10 are more skeptical. The Insight: Trust in others is a powerful predictor of happiness — more so than income or avoiding hardship. | 6. Is a Kinder World a Happier One? | | | | The Data: Acts of benevolence — helping strangers, donating and volunteering — are strongly associated with greater happiness. The top-rated countries, however, show varying rankings in donating money, volunteering time and helping others. The Shift: While generosity surged during the pandemic, it dropped sharply in 2024. Charitable giving remains higher than it was before the pandemic, but the sudden decline raises questions about where this trend is headed. Learn more: | | | |
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