For the seventh year in a row, Finland is the “happiest” country, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Israel. There are two new entrants in the top 20 – Costa Rica (12) and Kuwait (13). The world’s “unhappiest” nation is Afghanistan -the 2024 edition of the World Happiness Report (WHR) shows.
The World Happiness edition uses Gallup’s World Poll data to assign rankings to countries based on self-reported levels of national happiness. Countries are ranked according to their self-assessed life evaluations (answers to the Cantril ladder question in the Gallup World Poll), averaged over the years 2021 to 2023.
The report which was launched on 20 March 2024 under a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, SDSN, and the WHR’s Editorial Board, shows that Libya (in 80th position) and South Africa (87) have the most happy people in Africa while Lesotho (138) has the least happy people on the continent.
“Rankings are based on a three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life,” according to a press release. The report uses factors such as gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity, and perceptions of corruption to explain the variations across countries and over time.
For East Africa, Kenya beats the rest (in position 109) as having the most happy people of age bellow 30 years followed by Uganda (111) then Tanzania (129) and DR Congo trailing in position 140 among the listed 143 countries of the world.
According to this year’s report, Uganda has moved up two positions from last year when the country was ranked 113 on the list of most happy people. Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Somali again did not appear on the 2024 list.
However, this statistic for older Ugandans of 60 years and above with the country slipping to position 134 just 10 positions from the bottom of the list.
The authors state that the huge gaps in the rankings for some countries where the ranking for the young is 66 places higher than for the old, are clearly generational and age effects at play as well, as the older populations of those countries bear the most scars from the early 1990s wars and chaotic past.
Averaging across more than 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, life evaluations are highest for the young, fairly similar in the two middle age groups, and then higher for males and lower for females in the 60+ age group.
The report provides an analysis of happiness trends across different ages and generations in more than 140 countries. Globally, young people aged 15 to 24 report higher life satisfaction than older adults, the report finds. However, it warns that “this gap is narrowing in Europe and recently reversed in North America.” Data availability for the well-being of children below the age of 15 is limited.
In addition to national rankings, the report “provides analytics and advice for evidence-based planning and policymaking,” highlighted Gallup’s CEO Jon Clifton.
Follow the link below to access the Report:
