The World Happiness Report is a look at how countries around the world fare in terms of their residents’ happiness. Included in our Declaration of Independence is the alienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—so how are we doing? Not so great, it turns out. We are apparently pursuing happiness without catching it. In fact, this year the United States fell off the list of the top 20 happiest countries.
Although the name World Happiness Report sounds casual, it’s actually a pretty serious report, drawn up annually by Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the report’s editorial board. It intends to reflect “a worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy.” It also shows how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in pursuit of that feeling. It’s been around since 2012, thanks to a suggestion from Bhutan.
The report is created using observed data on six variables: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption—but interestingly, the happiness rankings are not based on any objective reporting but on individuals’ own assessments of their lives. That makes sense because some people can still be very happy even if outside factors wouldn’t suggest they could be.
Getting to the nitty-gritty, last year, the U.S. ranked No. 15 in the world, and this year, we have fallen to No. 23. First in the world for happiness? Finland. It is followed by a series of “cold weather countries,” which, of course, is tempting to form assumptions about. Put on another sweater and grin because your life is great! No. 2 is Denmark, and No. 3 is Iceland.
There are some fascinating takeaways in the study, such as age and generation being key factors to a sense of happiness; those born before 1965 report one-quarter of a point higher in life evaluation than do those born after 1980. And within each generation, the report says that, “life evaluations rise with age for those in the older generations and fall with age for the younger ones, with little age effect for those in between.” Global happiness inequality has increased by more than 20 percent over the past dozen years, and in the last two years, negative emotions worldwide are more prevalent for women than men.
Here are all the countries that are ranked happier than the U.S.:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Israel
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Luxembourg
9. Switzerland
10. Australia
11. New Zealand
12. Costa Rica
13. Kuwait
14. Austria
15. Canada
16. Belgium
17. Ireland
18. Czechia
19. Lithuania
20. United Kingdom
21. Slovenia
22. United Arab Emirates