2024 World Happiness Report: Happiest countries revealed, US fails to crack top 20

Julia Gomez, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read
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The 2024 World Happiness Report, a list of the happiest countries in the world, has been released today on International Day of Happiness. And spoiler alert, the United States isn't at the top.

For the first time since the World Happiness Report was first released 12 years ago, the US isn't ranked in the world's top 20 happiest countries. It sits at No. 23, the United Arab Emirates is ranked at 22 and Slovenia at 21.

World Happiness Report: So which are the top 20 happiest countries?

According to the World Happiness Report, the following are the happiest countries:

  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

World Happiness Report: Nordic countries top the list

There isn't much difference in the top 10. Nordic countries are still dominating the happiness charts. But to get a better picture, folks need to look at the top 20 as a whole.

There are barely any countries with large populations at the top.

"In the top ten countries only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million," states the report's website. "In the whole of the top twenty, only Canada and the United Kingdom have populations over 30 million."

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World Happiness Report reveals youth aren't happy in the US

The report did a break down and also ranked the happiness of different age groups. The United States ranked in the top 10 when the report analyzed the happiness of "the old," people aged 60 and over.

But, when it came to the happiness of the young, folks younger than 30, the country was ranked at 63.

What is the World Happiness Report?

According to its website, its a partnership between Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the WHR (World Happiness Report) Editorial Board, which produces the report.

"The World Happiness Report reflects a worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy," states its website. "It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness."

How do World Happiness Report researchers measure happiness?

According to the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network, SDSN, global researchers analyze data from the Gallup World Poll.

The poll gathers responses from over 100,000 people from all around the world.

People in different countries rank their happiness by imagining a ladder with 10 steps. The first and lowest step of the ladder represents the worst of the worst a person's life can be. The tenth and highest step represents a person's best life. Researchers then ask people which step they believe they're on.

World Happiness Report: What factors impact happiness?

SDSN lists six factors that can explain the different levels of happiness.

  • Social Support- This is the best predictor of happiness. If people feel like they have at least one person they can reach out to when they're in need, they are more likely to feel secure.

  • GDP per capita- This is how much a country produces divided by its population.

  • A healthy life expectancy- The researchers look at the physical and mental health of a country's population.

  • Freedom to make life choices- This plays a key role in how happy one feels.

  • Generosity- This factor looks at how charitable a country's people are.

  • Perception of Corruption- How corrupt are a country's government and business policies? This factor looks at both and researchers use what they find to estimate happiness levels.

Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. She has covered various topics, from local businesses and government in her hometown, Miami, to tech and pop culture. You can follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: World Happiness Report rankings: The top 20 happiest countries