The 2025 World Happiness Report was released on March 20, the International Day of Happiness. The first World Happiness Report was published in 2012 after Bhutan, a country that measures its success based on the happiness of its people urged the UN and national governments to “give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.”
Since then, the report has been measuring which countries in the world have the happiest citizens and exploring various themes related to global happiness including age, generation, gender, migration, sustainable development, benevolence, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global well-being.
As always, the results of this year’s report are fascinating (you can read the full report here.) The authors chose the theme “Caring and Sharing”, delving into how caring and sharing and specifically three benevolent acts, donating, volunteering and helping strangers can make people happier.
The Happiest Countries
Finland ranked #1 for the eighth year in a row while Canada ranked 18th. The US fell off the list of the top 20 happiest countries to #24. One troubling statistic is that in general, the western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010 with the US, Canada and Switzerland experiencing the biggest drops.
Here are the top 20 happiest countries in order:
Finland
Denmark
Iceland
Sweden
Netherlands
Costa Rica
Norway
Israel (if you’re wondering about Israel, it scored highest in several areas, including the quality of social connection amongst youth)
Luxembourg
Mexico
Australia
New Zealand
Switzerland
Belgium
Ireland
Lithuania
Austria
Canada
Slovenia
Czechia
Key findings
Beyond health and wealth, simple acts of caring and sharing can influence happiness, including sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support, and household size.
- While it’s well documented that people who live alone are unhappier, research shows that happiness rises with household sizes up to four people, but above that happiness declines.
- We are too pessimistic about kindness in our communities, and this pessimism is contributing to our unhappiness. For example, when wallets were dropped in the street by researchers, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected.
- One interesting piece of research and a positive from the global pandemic is we’ve seen a “benevolence” bump of 10% since COVID-19. The pandemic taught us to think and care for others more, and that benevolence has continued.
- One disturbing trend is young people in North America and Western Europe now report the lowest well-being and happiness among all age groups. In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support, a 39% increase compared to 2006. In fact, the fall in the United States’ happiness ranking is largely due to the decline in well-being among Americans under 30.
- When society is more benevolent, the people who benefit most are those who are least happy. As a result, happiness is more equally distributed in countries with higher levels of expected benevolence
So what does this year’s report tell us and what simple happy acts can we all do to promote caring and sharing?
- Share meals together: people who eat frequently with others are happier
- Be kind and don’t underestimate the kindness of others
- Try not to live alone
- Build social connections and don’t be afraid to reach out to people
- Practice benevolent acts–do what you can to volunteer, donate or help a stranger (several African countries reported low scores for donating but scored very high for helping strangers which helped their happiness scores)
Finally remember that caring is “twice-blessed”: it blesses those who give and those who receive. Have a happy week.
Happy Act 