World Happiness Report

The findings of World Happiness Report 2025, published today (20 March), reconfirm a fundamental truth: happiness is rooted in trust, kindness, and social connection. 🇫🇮 Country rankings 📈 Countries on the up 📉 Concerning trends 🤲 Benevolence trends 🥰 Increasing happiness 🤒 Reducing misery Take a closer look at some of the key findings from World Happiness Report 2025.👇

🍽️ Sharing meals proves to be an exceptionally strong indicator of subjective #wellbeing – on par with income and unemployment. Those who share more meals with others report significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and positive affect, and lower levels of negative affect. This is true across ages, genders, countries, cultures, and regions. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (University of Oxford) highlights findings published in World Happiness Report 2025.👇

🧑🤝🧑 How many meals did you eat with someone you know last week? There is significant variation in the rates of meal sharing across the world, which research shows is an exceptionally strong indicator of subjective #wellbeing. Senegal tops the list, where residents report sharing 11.7 meals (of a maximum of 14) with others per week on average. Gambia, Malaysia, and Paraguay come next, where residents report sharing approximately 11 meals with others per week. Iceland is the only country from Europe or North America represented in the top 10 with an average of 10 meals shared per week. Canada ranks 53rd with 8.4 meals shared per week, the United States ranks 69th, and the United Kingdom ranks 81st. Germany appears in 91st place, while India ranks 132nd with 4 meals shared per week. At the very bottom of the list are Bangladesh and Estonia, where residents report sharing only 2.7 meals per week. Read more Ch3 of #WHR2025 👉 https://lnkd.in/ggGDaTbh

Since the year 2000, the number of deaths of despair has declined in nearly 75% of the 59 countries with available data examined by STATEC researchers in World Happiness Report 2025. ⬅️ This decline approaches, on average, -2 deaths per 100,000 persons per year in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, followed by Kazakhstan, Finland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Denmark. ➡️ The United States, on the other hand, has seen an average yearly increase of 1.3 deaths per 100,000. Deaths of despair rapidly rose due to a number of factors, but especially among middle-aged men due to increased drug abuse. The Republic of Korea and Slovakia have the second and third highest yearly increase in deaths of despair, with average annual increases below 1. A word of caution, though: cultural and institutional differences can affect ‘cause of death’ reporting and limit the comparability of data across countries. Read more in Ch6 of #WHR2025 👉 https://lnkd.in/ecpT2CRq

😔 Deaths of despair are preventable deaths due to suicide, alcohol abuse, and drug overdose. On average, deaths of despair decreased around the world by nearly five deaths per 100,000 people over the period 2000-2019 in 59 middle- to high-income countries, which equates to approximately 2,750 people in a country like the United Kingdom, with an adult population of approximately 55 million people. But, encouragingly, increasing prosocial behaviour – donating, volunteering, and helping strangers – is reliably connected to decreasing deaths of despair around the world. A 10 percentage-point increase in the share of people engaging in prosocial behaviour is associated with approximately one fewer death per year per 100,000. For the UK, that is equivalent to about 550 preventable deaths per year. Read more in Ch6 of #WHR2025 👉 https://lnkd.in/ecpT2CRq

⛅️ Kindness saves lives: deaths of despair are less frequent in countries where benevolent acts are more frequent. Fengyu Wu (STATEC Research) explains findings published in World Happiness Report 2025.👇

Kindness 🤝 Happiness

👨👩👧👦 A household size of four to five members is predictive of higher satisfaction with life in both Mexico and Europe. People in these households enjoy abundant and satisfying relationships. The inverse U-shape of this relationship suggests that people who live on their own often experience lower levels of life satisfaction, primarily due to lower levels of relational satisfaction. People in very large households can also experience lower levels of life satisfaction, likely linked to diminished economic satisfaction. Read more in Ch4 of #WHR2025 👉 https://lnkd.in/e4NVNdfB

🏡 Happiness starts at home. Mariano Rojas (Tecnológico Nacional de México) shares an insight into the relationship between household size and happiness.👇

🌎 Latin American societies – often characterised by larger household sizes and strong family bonds – offer valuable lessons for other societies that seek higher and sustainable #wellbeing.