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Every year, a select group of the world’s experts in psychology, economics and government put their heads together to publish the World Happiness Report, a nation-by-nation breakdown of the happiest countries in the world. The Report is dense, packed with statistics and charts, and unequivocally insightful. Competition at the top of the list is ruthless, with each country jostling to be the best of the best. This is precisely why only one country has been able to crack the top three in each of the past three years. What is that country? The place known for fried pork and Niels Bohr alike: Denmark.
In the 2016 World Happiness Report, Denmark held the top spot. In 2017, it was #2 behind Norway, and this year it came in at #3, behind Norway at #2 and Finland, which claimed the crown. Of course, there are plenty of reasons why Denmark would perform so well year after year. It has the highest percentage of arable land of any country in the world, more than half of its land by area, and is known for its enviable work-life balance. Its capital, Copenhagen, is a world-class haven of art and design, and was recently named the fifth-most livable city in the world. It's a haven of comfort, too, thanks to its obsession with “hygge,” the way of living that’s pronounced “hoo-gah” and translates roughly to “cozy.” For a relatively small country, there’s a lot going on in Denmark.
Aggregate happiness isn't the only metric that matters, though. Another strong indicator of a nation’s long-term happiness is a low inequality in happiness amongst its citizens; a country where some people are extremely happy and others are extremely unhappy is a disaster waiting to happen. The 2016 report looks at this in depth, noting that Denmark ranks #22 out of 157 countries on the equality scale, an impressive showing. Unsurprisingly, Norway and Finland perform similarly well. “Of the 20 most equal countries, seven also appear in the top 20 countries in terms of average happiness," the authors write. "Of the 20 least equal, none except for Puerto Rico are among the top twenty in happiness, and most are in the bottom half of the world distribution.” If that doesn't display the link between equality and happiness, I don’t know what does.
The prevalence of Scandinavian nations and other mainstays like Canada in the top ten should not be surprising: highly subsidized higher education and universal health care make a significant difference when it comes to our well-being. These may also explain why the United States hasn’t performed nearly as well. America ranked 18th in the 2018 report, not a terrible showing, though that was a drop of four positions from 2017. We also ranked 85th on the happiness equality scale, which indicates that, though some Americans are very happy with their lives, many others are very unhappy. As if that weren't enough, Americans reported one of the most significant decreases in happiness between the periods 2008-2010 and 2015-2017 . Directly ahead of us on that metric? Honduras, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Sudan.
A few other countries' positions were surprising as well: Singapore at #34, Japan at #54, South Korea at #57 and Hong Kong at #76. While these may not have been shoo-ins for the top twenty, I didn't expect them to fall below Argentina, which is in the midst of a long-standing currency crisis, and Brazil, which has one of the highest violent crime rates in the world. This just goes to show that the link between GDP and happiness is far from reliable; while an income you can survive on is important, it's far from the only thing that matters.
Here are the twenty-five happiest countries in the world in 2018:
- Finland
- Norway
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- Canada
- New Zealand
- Sweden
- Australia
- Israel
- Austria
- Costa Rica
- Ireland
- Germany
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- United States
- United Kingdom
- United Arab Emirates
- Czech Republic
- Malta
- France
- Mexico
- Chile
