According to a global evaluation, Finland remains the happiest place on Earth, whereas Britain and the United States have gotten less happy.
The Scandinavian country, which has a population of 5.5 million people, has won the award for the past seven years running.
Afghanistan, however, is once again at the bottom of the World Happiness Report.
Both the United Kingdom and the United States have dropped in the 2024 worldwide league table of over 140 countries.
Britain lost one rank to 20th, after Lithuania and Czechia, while the United States fell eight places to 23rd.
Experts also stated that the statistics revealed a concerning trend of younger persons in Europe and North America having the equivalent of a’mid-life crisis’.
The UN-sponsored report, now in its 12th year, is based on tens of thousands of happiness surveys, as well as economic and social data.
It assigns a happiness score on a scale of 0 to 10, based on an average score over three years.
Finland received 7.74 out of 10, while Afghanistan received 1.72. For comparison, the UK’s was 6.72.
Since the report’s inception in 2012, the US has dropped from the top 20 due to a marginally lower score.
Analysts claimed this was primarily due to a fall in well-being among those under the age of 30, with this year’s report being the first to break down results by age.
The United States rated 62nd in terms of happiness among young people. It ranked tenth among the elderly, defined as anyone over the age of sixty.
It ranked 42nd in the younger middle-aged population and 17th in the older middle-aged.
In comparison, Britain ranked 32nd for youth, 27th for younger middle-aged, 19th for older middle-aged, and 20th for elderly persons.
Lithuania (19th overall) has the happiest younger people in the world, whereas Denmark’s (2nd overall) elderly people are the happiest on Earth.
Between generations, analysts discovered that persons born before 1965 are often happier than those born after 1980.
Every year, millennials’ satisfaction levels decline. In contrast, boomers’ life satisfaction has risen with age.
Experts claimed the statistics also revealed a concerning trend of younger people in Western Europe and North America going through the equivalent of a’mid-life crisis’.
The report’s editor, Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve of the University of Oxford, found troubling drops in the wellbeing of children and adolescents globally, particularly in North America and Western Europe, after analyzing available data.
‘To think that, in some parts of the world, youngsters are already facing the equivalent of a mid-life crisis calls for prompt governmental intervention.’
Eight of the 10 happiest countries were found in Europe, with Denmark coming in second with 7.58 points, which was roughly the same as the Scandinavian country’s score last year.
Iceland placed third.Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Australia completed the top 10.
War-scarred Afghanistan and Lebanon remained the two least happy countries on the planet, with scores of 1.72 and 2.70, respectively.
Lesotho, a landlocked African country, ranked third in terms of unhappiness at 3.18.
Costa Rica re-entered the top 20 after a three-year absence, while Germany, like the US, dropped off of the list of the happiest nations for the first time.
This year’s report is the first since Israel and Hamas’ conflict began in 2023.
Israel (5th) outperformed Palestine (103rd) with a score of 7.34, compared to 4.88.
Both countries saw a drop in the worldwide happiness rankings.
This represents the second year of data after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia presently ranks 72nd in the global league table (5.78), down from 70th the previous year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine ranks 105th with 4.87, down from 92nd the previous year.
The report is based on self-reported data from individuals questioned in each country.
Participants are asked to rank their life out of ten, and an average score for the country is computed using the ratings obtained during the previous three years.