If you were asked to rate your life as a whole on a scale from zero for the worst possible life and 10 for the best possible, how would you rate the state of your life right now?
That’s the question Gallup asks roughly 1,000 people each year in 136 countries. Dating back to 2012, the resulting report — with 100 different social scientists contributing over the years — generates an average measure of life satisfaction for each nation.
Timed with the “International Day of Happiness” on Friday, the World Happiness Report released its annual findings for 2026. As expected, a group of especially happy countries continue to stand out positively — while a group of conflict-ridden countries show uniquely low levels of happiness.
But while general happiness across the world continues to grow, it continues to be perplexing for many to see overall happiness of most Western countries continuing to decrease.
Rising global happiness
Comparing happiness levels from a decade and a half ago until now among the 136 countries assessed, almost twice as many countries had “significant gains” in happiness (79) compared with “significant losses” (41).
That includes essentially all of central and Eastern Europe — like Serbia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Slovenia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia and Lithuania — with 21 countries gaining a point or more in Central and Eastern Europe.
A number of other countries in the global south also stand out by their improved happiness, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
Speaking of overall happiness, Finland still leads the way for the ninth year in a row, followed by Iceland and Denmark. Costa Rica took a surprise fourth place — the highest ranking any Latin American country has achieved — followed by Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.
As smaller countries, Israel, Luxembourg and Switzerland round out the top 10.
Youth happiness as a key variable
According to analysts, happiness boosts in Central and Eastern Europe are partially driven by the youth of these various countries — while the corollary is also true of many Western countries mentioned below, where youth woes are weighing on overall happiness.
Remarkably, the report notes that in eight of the 10 global regions reviewed in the analysis (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now compared with surveys in 2006—2010.
Family contributors to happiness
Scholars highlight several variables they consider driving many of these happiness levels, including income, healthy life expectancy, social support, perceptions of corruption, freedom to make life choices, a sense of engaging in generous actions, and trusting one’s fellow citizens and the government as a whole.
Researchers underscored “the value and importance of the family as a centerpiece” of Costa Rica’s rise into the top 10 — adding: “They have links across generations that other countries strive to maintain” (this may also explain why Mexico ranks 12th in world happiness).
One of the leading happiness researchers in the world, John F. Helliwell from the University of British Columbia, pointed to other research in Latin America that asks: “How much time do you spend with your family? How much do you like your family?”
“These measures are higher in Latin America than elsewhere,” Helliwell said, “and Latin Americans care about them more, … that extra warmth and strength of those close social connections are really extraordinarily important.”
Decreasing happiness in war zones
Most of the eight countries with the most significant drops in happiness are either experiencing war or near areas of major conflict. “Conflict, of course, is the absolute destroyer of happiness,” says Richard Layard, a report editor with the London School of Economics and Political Science. “So countries like Afghanistan, and so on, have been plunging.”
After Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Lebanon have taken the biggest drops. And overall, many of the least happy places in the world measured after Afghanistan are in Africa (Sierra Leone, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Congo, Tanzania) and the Middle East (Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt). (Places like Russia, North Korea and Iran are not included in the study).
Western happiness keeps dropping
When it comes to English speaking countries, Layard said, “there’s been this remarkable fall in youth well-being over the last 15 years or so.”
“In North America and Western Europe, young people are much less happy than 15 years ago,” the report itself summarizes. “In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases.”
It’s important to point out that many of these Western countries still rank high in overall happiness, with New Zealand 11th, Australia 15th, Germany 17th, United States 23rd, Canada 25th and United Kingdom 29th.
Yet when focusing more specifically on happiness changes for those under 25 years old, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand fall between 122 and 133 in the list of 136 countries. These and other Western industrialized countries keep dropping, the authors say, “in large part due to lower levels of life satisfaction reported by youth under the age of 25.”
Western countries are obviously not the only countries facing some happiness headwinds. Even simultaneous with a rise in overall happiness levels, the report notes that “negative emotions are becoming more common in all global regions.”
“Worry rose more broadly for the young, while the frequency of anger fell everywhere, for young and old alike,” the authors say. At the same time, “positive emotions continue to be twice as frequent as negative emotions.”
Happiness as an alternative to GDP as a key progress indicator
“There’s now an alternative to thinking about GDP as a measure of social progress,” emphasizes Belgian economist Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an editor of the World Happiness report — with Lara Aknin, professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University also involved in editing the report, adding: “Happiness can be studied and measured scientifically, can be translated into policies in everyday practices that can improve people’s lives.”
The “most important message” from the world happiness report, according to Helliwell is “to measure, cherish, and build good lives for (yourselves), yes, but for other people, especially.”