Finland is the happiest country in the world, confirming itself in first position for the eighth consecutive year, while Italy stops in 40th place in the ranking. This is what the UN’s annual report on happiness reveals that in this edition positions the United States at the lowest level ever in 24th place, a place less than last year, continuing its descending trajectory compared to the 11th position of 2012, the year of the start of the investigation.
All Nordic countries are confirmed among the top ten happiest: immediately behind Finland we find Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, while the Netherlands are classified in fifth place. For the first time, Costa Rica and Mexico enter the top 10, respectively in sixth and tenth position.
Decline in the United States
The report, published by the Wellbeing Research Center of the University of Oxford in collaboration with Gallup and the United Nations network for sustainable development solutions, evaluates various factors to measure the happiness of the companies. Among these, health, wealth, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption. The analysis is based on self -rescued evaluations by citizens of 147 countries.
One of the aspects underlined in the report is the link between well -being and sharing of meals. The authors show that in the United States the number of people who have gone by alone has increased by 53% in the last two decades, contributing to the decline of well -being in the country. In addition, the USA are one of the few countries in which there has been an increase in the “deaths from despair” (suicides or deaths linked to alcohol and drug abuse), while in most of the world these deaths are falling.
It is worth noting that the report analyzes the period 2022-2024 and is therefore not connected to recent political developments in the United States, such as the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Like last year, Afghanistan confirms the least happy country, followed by Sierra Leone and Lebanon. Italy, as mentioned, is in 40th place, while France is positioned at 33rd, behind Switzerland (13th), Belgium (14th) and Canada (18th).
Happiness, politics and distrust in institutions
The study is based on a single question addressed to citizens: “Imagine a staircase with numbered steps from 0 at the bottom of 10 at the top. The top represents the best life possible for you and the base the worst. On which step of the staircase would you say to feel at this moment?”.
The report highlights a link between happiness and political guidelines, underlining that compared to them “subjective attitudes, such as satisfaction for life and interpersonal trust, play a crucial role” and that “in the context of post-industrial societies, which have become increasingly individualist, subjective attitudes play a much more important role in the formation of voting values and behaviors compared to traditional ideologies or class struggle”.
According to the report, “the low satisfaction for life is highly correlated to the distrust in institutions and voting preferences for anti-system candidates, both in the United States and in Europe”.
In the last decade, the report still underlines, “resentment towards the system has grown in most European countries, in particular in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and Hungary”. In general, it highlights the study, “voters contest immigration and globalization”, while attacks on experts and traditional media are increasingly common “.
