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The 2024 World Happiness Report also showed a worrying downward trend in life evaluations among young people and young adults, particularly in Western Europe.
advertisementFinland has been named the happiest country in the world for the seventh consecutive year in the newly released World Happiness Report.
The report is compiled using data from more than 140 countries and is published annually by Gallup, the United Nations, and the University of Oxford.
The 2024 World Happiness Report provides, for the first time, empirical data based on age, showing a worrying disconnect in the happiness of young people around the world compared to older generations.
Overall, European countries dominated the rankings. especially, nordic countries Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Norway all remained in the top 10.
How do you measure happiness?
The annual World Happiness Report rankings are based primarily on subjective life assessments compiled over the past three years from the Gallup World Poll, in collaboration with Oxford University’s Center for Wellbeing Research and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Masu.
The rankings themselves are based solely on people’s responses when asked to rate their lives, but then multidisciplinary experts from the fields of economics, psychology, and sociology are called in to review the data. is processed and evaluated based on six key variables.
The variables quantified in the report are income (GDP per capita), healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom of choice in life, generosity, and freedom from corruption.
Young people are more unhappy than ever
For the first time, this report drills down into the data to provide insight into happiness by age group.
The results show a very different picture from the official rankings, with Lithuania (19th overall) coming out on top as the happiest country in the world for young children and people under 30, while Denmark (2nd) It became the happiest country. For seniors over 60 years old.
However, this year’s report highlighted widening disparities in happiness between ages based on geographic location.
Researchers found that globally, young people aged 15 to 24 report higher life satisfaction than adults aged 25 and older. However, Western Europe and North America, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia saw significant declines “due to negative trends for young people.”
“When we piece together the available data on the well-being of children and young people around the world, we record a disconcerting decline, particularly in North America and Western Europe,” said the director of Oxford University’s Center for Wellbeing Research and magazine editor. said Jean-Emmanuel de Neve. The World Happiness Report says:
“Given that children in some parts of the world are already experiencing what amounts to a midlife crisis, urgent policy action is needed.”
Conversely, in other parts of the world, the happiness of young people and adolescents has increased significantly, but, generally speaking, older people are much happier overall.
Comparing generations, people born before 1965 are on average happier than people born after 1980.
The report found that while baby boomers’ life satisfaction increased with age, millennials’ ratings of happiness declined as they got older.
“We found some pretty surprising results: The relative well-being of young people, old people, and populations in between varies greatly across countries,” said John, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia and a foundation Corporation John F. Helliwell said.editor of world happiness reportsaid in a statement.
“Therefore, global happiness rankings vary widely between young and old people and have changed significantly over the past decade.”
advertisementWhich countries are in the bottom 10?
Starting from the bottom 10, Afghanistan remains the world’s unhappiest country, with little change in its ranking.
134.Zambia
135. Eswatini
136. Malawi
137. Botswana
advertisement138. Zimbabwe
139.Congo
140. Sierra Leone
141. Lesotho
142. Lebanon
advertisement143. Afghanistan
Which countries made it into the top 10?
Overall, this year’s top 10 rankings remain largely unchanged, especially the top three. However, second place Denmark managed to close the gap with Finland.
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
advertisement4. Sweden
5. Israel
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Luxembourg
advertisement9. Switzerland
10. Australia
What are the key points?
While the top 10 remains closely tied in terms of scores and their positions have changed little, there are more interesting developments in the top 20.
Among new entrants, Costa Rica and Kuwait ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, while the United States and Germany were both removed from 15th and 16th place, dropping to 23rd and 24th this year.
This is the first time the U.S. has fallen out of the top 20 since the World Happiness Report was first released, and this is largely due to a significant drop in happiness among Americans under 30, the report says. The authors pointed out.
advertisementThere is also a noticeable narrowing in happiness between Western and Eastern Europe this year, with countries such as the Czech Republic (18th) and Lithuania (19th) remaining in the top 20, and Slovenia currently in 21st place. It becomes.
Interestingly, none of the world’s largest countries are in the top 20, and only two, the Netherlands and Australia, are in the top 10 with populations exceeding 15 million people.
As in previous years, 2023 brought major geopolitical events. Their impact on the happiness gauge varies greatly depending on when these events occurred in relation to when the survey was conducted. The rankings are also based on his three-year average of aggregated data.
Therefore, events like the Hamas attack on the Israeli kibbutz on October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza would hardly have registered, which is why Israel (4th place last year) remains high in the ranking at 5th place. It explains the reason.
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