World’s happiest countries revealed in 2024 report, and US no longer ranks in top 20
In honor of the International Day of Happiness on Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly released its annual report highlighting the happiest countries in the world – and the United States has fallen out of the top 20 for the first time.
In fact, the U.S. ranks 23rd in the 2024 World Happiness Report, its decline in the rankings driven by "a large drop in the wellbeing of Americans under 30." Last year, the U.S. ranked 15th.
FILE - The sun sets on the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the One World Trade Center in New York City as people walk along the Hudson River on March 17, 2024, in Edgewater, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the overall rankings as the world’s "unhappiest" nation, the report said.
The report suggests several factors contribute to a country’s well-being, including the impact of governments and nonprofits, health services and social care, schools, the availability of businesses and work, community life, environmental agencies, legal systems, and belief systems.
The top 10 countries for 2024 have remained much the same since before the pandemic, the report said.
Finland is still at the top, ranking No. 1 for the seventh year in a row. Denmark is now very close, and all five Nordic countries are in the top 10.
FILE - Helsinki residents spend their Sunday in early March 2024 at a café of an outdoor swimming pool. (Photo by Takimoto Marina/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
"But in the next 10, there is more change, with the transition countries of Eastern Europe rising in happiness (especially Czechia, Lithuania and Slovenia)," the 2024 World Happiness Report said. "Partly for this reason the United States and Germany have fallen to 23 and 24 in the rankings."
For the first time, the 2024 report also gave separate rankings by age group. Lithuania topped the list for children and young people under 30, while Denmark was ranked the world’s happiest nation for those 60 and older.
In North America, happiness has fallen so sharply for younger people that "they are now less happy than the old," the report said.
"By contrast, in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the young are much happier than the old," the report said. "In Western Europe as a whole happiness is similar at all ages, while elsewhere it tends to decline over the life cycle (with an occasional upturn for the old)."
Rankings are based on a three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life.
FILE - Women sit on the steps in front of Helsinki Cathedral in early March 2024 in Helsinki, Finland. (Photo by Takimoto Marina/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
"The broad country coverage and annual surveys of the Gallup World Poll provide an unmatched source of data about the quality of lives all over the globe," Professor John F. Helliwell, a founding Editor of the World Happiness Report, said in a statement. "There are now enough years of data, going back to 2006, to enable us this year to plausibly separate age and generational patterns for happiness."
Helliwell called the results "pretty striking."
"There is a great variety among countries in the relative happiness of the younger, older, and in-between populations," Helliwell continued. "Hence the global happiness rankings are quite different for the young and the old, to an extent that has changed a lot over the last dozen years."
The world’s happiest countries of 2024
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Sweden
- Israel
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Luxembourg
- Switzerland
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Costa Rica
- Kuwait
- Austria
- Canada
- Belgium
- Ireland
- Czech Republic
- Lithuania
- United Kingdom
What is the International Day of Happiness?
According to the United Nations General Assembly, the day recognizes the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world.
The organization wrote in a statement that "Happiness is a fundamental human goal" and that they call for "a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all peoples."
They noted that governments and international organizations should invest in conditions that support happiness by upholding human rights and incorporating well-being and environmental dimensions into policy frameworks, including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
"The effectiveness of governments in upholding peace and social order, as well as in the fields of taxation, legal institutions and delivery of public services, strongly correlates with average life satisfaction," the organization continued.
The proclamation was initiated by Bhutan, a country that has recognized the value of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s and famously adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product.
This story was reported from Los Angeles and Cincinnati.