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Where People Are (Un)Happiest With Their Lives
World Happiness Day
In 2012, the United Nations proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness or World Happiness Day, which has been held on this date every year since. The aim is to promote awareness for a "more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all people". Although happiness and satisfaction are subjective parameters, the team behind the World Happiness Report has once again produced a country ranking this year that reveals clear differences between Western industrialized nations and countries in Asia and Africa.
In order to map the satisfaction of respondents in the 147 countries surveyed, participants were asked to rate their level of satisfaction with their current life on a ten-point scale. This was used to calculate an average value for the results between 2022 and 2024 for each country. As this chart, based on the report shows, Finland (7.736), Denmark (7.521) and Iceland (7.515) are the countries with the most satisfied residents according to calculations, while the three lowest scores are found among the residents of Lebanon (3.19), Sierra Leone (3.00) and Afghanistan (1.36). The United States is ranked 24th out of the 147 countries in this year's evaluation.
The report found that unemployment was a factor influencing life evaluation negatively, as were the anticipation of mental health issues or violent crime. Doubling one's income had a positive effect, but it was by far not as big as the increase in perceived happiness correlated with carrying out benevolent acts like donating to charity, volunteering or helping a stranger. Expecting to have your wallet returned when lost coincided with an even bigger boost to life ratings, however.
It’s important to note here that the ranking of the World Happiness Report is not an objective survey based on key figures such as gross domestic product per capita, life expectancy or the quality of the social system. According to the authors, these are analyzed as "supporting factors" in the text of the report but have no influence on the score.
The Key to Happiness?
Lifestyle
In the United States, having a job or career that you enjoy is considered a key cornerstone for leading a fulfilling life. According to a survey by Pew Research Center, 71 percent of respondents said that having a job or career that they like is either extremely or very important to feeling satisfied with their lot. The next most popular perceived element for a fulfilling life was having close friends, with 61 percent of respondents picking the option. Having children, a lot of money or getting married were less highly rated. In the case of having children, 42 percent of respondents said it was not important, while 44 percent said marriage was not important.
Women were slightly more likely than men to say that their job or career is important to achieving a feeling of fulfillment, at 74 percent compared to their counterparts’ 69 percent. Men were slightly more likely to say having children (29 percent versus women’s 22 percent) or marriage (28 percent for men versus 18 percent for women) were key to such perceived metrics of success.
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https://www.statista.com/chart/29745/money-equals-happy-correlation-wealth-happiness/
Money = Happy?
Wealth
The question of whether money makes people happy has probably been on mankind's mind for as long as this means of payment has existed. Our infographic tries to get closer to an answer. The underlying figures are, on the one side, the points achieved by the countries in the World Happiness Index (X-axis of the chart) and on the other, their respective gross domestic product per capita (Y-axis).
As indicated by the distribution of countries based on the green dots and the corresponding red trend line, there is a correlation between the variables: The higher a country's GDP per capita, the more points it tends to score on the World Happiness Index.
The correlation comes to a value of 0.69 - representing a strong association. There are however deviations and outliers. For example, Hong Kong's (HK) GDP per capita of $49,700 is relatively high, but its Happiness Index score of 5.31 is relatively low - many countries with similar Happiness Index scores have GDP per capita below $10,000.
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