Frequently Asked Questions
Many people think of happiness as a positive emotional state, associated with smiling, laughing, and feeling good (e.g., I feel happy today). However, people often use happiness to describe their assessments and judgements too (e.g., I’m happy with my life overall). We care about both of these aspects, but we usually talk about them using the following scientific terms.
Wellbeing: Wellbeing is your inner subjective state; the quality of your life as you experience it. We believe that the ultimate good is the wellbeing of present and future generations. Other goods (like health, wealth, relationships etc.) are good because they help us to feel good.
Subjective wellbeing: When a person is asked to represent their feelings with a number, they are being asked to rate their subjective wellbeing. The only way to know how someone is feeling is to ask them but there are many ways to do this, as we explain below.
Life evaluation: One method asks people to provide a reflective assessment of their life overall. Our happiness ranking is based on a life evaluation question derived from the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Cantril Ladder). It asks people to rate their life on a 0-10 scale, from the worst possible life (0) to the best possible life (10).
Life satisfaction: Like the Cantril Ladder, life satisfaction is a specific type of life evaluation question. A common question is: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?, from not at all (0) to completely (10).
Affect: Another method is to focus on a person’s feelings or emotional states, usually at a particular point in time, and divided into two opposing categories: positive affect (e.g., laughter, enjoyment, interest) and negative affect (e.g., worry, sadness, anger). A common question is: Did you experience (enjoyment, worry etc.) during a lot of the day yesterday? (Yes/No).
Eudaimonia: A third method reflects the sense of meaning and purpose in a person’s life. A common question is: Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?, from not at all (0) to completely (10).
To learn more about the different definitions and measures of happiness, we recommend the OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-Being.
How is your ranking calculated?
Our happiness ranking is based on a single life evaluation question called the Cantril Ladder:
- Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top.
- The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.
- On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
This question is both democratic and universal. Rather than constructing an index from multiple metrics, the Cantril Ladder empowers people to make their own judgements about what matters most, regardless of their culture and background.
The question does not mention concepts like happiness, wellbeing, or satisfaction, so it can be easily translated and understood in many different languages.
The data have been collected by the Gallup World Poll since 2005 and are analysed by independent experts.
Why do you rank countries using life evaluations rather than emotions or mental states?
Life evaluations capture the quality of life in a more complete and stable way than emotional reports based on daily experiences. Life evaluations vary more between countries and they are better explained by the diverse life experiences of people in different countries. Emotions are well explained by events of the day being asked about, while life evaluations closely reflect the circumstances of life as a whole. We see emotions as a channel of influence, as shown in Table 2.1, through which various events and circumstances can affect evaluations of life as a whole.
What is your sample size?
The number of people and countries surveyed varies year to year but, in general, more than 100,000 people in 140 countries and territories participate in the Gallup World Poll each year.
In most countries, approximately 1,000 people are contacted by telephone or face-to-face each year. Tables 1-5 in the Statistical Appendix show the sample size for each country since 2005. Gallup’s website provides more details on their data collection methods.
To provide a more robust estimate of the average life evaluation in each country, we combine the responses from the last three years. For example, our 2025 rankings are based on combined data from 2022 to 2024. Using a sample size of at least 3,000 provides a more precise estimate and reduces random sampling error.
What time of year is the data collected?
The Gallup World Poll collects data throughout the year, taking into account religious observances, weather patterns, pandemics, war, and other local factors. Variation in collection timing is not a serious obstacle to analysis as there are established techniques to test for seasonal effects and adjust for them (see this paper for an example).
Why are some countries missing from the ranking?
If a country has a small or inaccessible population, it may not be cost-effective for Gallup to collect data there every year. This includes many small island states in the Caribbean and Pacific, as well as the mountain kingdom of Bhutan, which was last surveyed in 2015.
Tables 1-5 in the Statistical Appendix show the sample size for each country since 2005.
What are the confidence intervals shown in Figure 2.1?
The confidence intervals shown by horizontal lines show the range of values within which there is a 95% likelihood of the population mean being located. Countries with non-overlapping confidence intervals are estimated to have statistically different average life evaluation scores.
We also calculate the 95% confidence intervals for each country’s rank. These ranges are larger for countries with smaller sample sizes and when several countries have similar average life evaluation scores.
How does your approach differ from other happiness rankings?
Our ranking is based on a single life evaluation question, the Cantril Ladder, using data collected from over 140 countries by the Gallup World Poll since 2005.
Some attempts to compare the happiness of nations use an index or dashboard that combines multiple dimensions of wellbeing, such as the Happy Planet Index and the OECD Better Life Index. Other global rankings use limited datasets with unrepresentative samples (Mental State of the World) or fewer countries (Global Happiness Report).
Why do countries have different happiness scores?
Each year, we present our latest economic modelling to explain countries’ average life evaluation scores using six variables:
- Having someone to count on
- Log GDP per capita
- Healthy life expectancy
- Freedom to make life choices
- Generosity
- Freedom from corruption
Taken together, these six variables explain more than three-quarters of the variation in national life evaluation scores across countries and years, using data from 2005 onwards. The number of years covered by the Gallup World Poll is now high enough to estimate equations that include fixed effects for each year and country, as shown in the Statistical Appendix.
The explanatory power of the model has gradually increased as we’ve added more years to the sample, which is now almost three times as large as when the equation was first introduced in World Happiness Report 2013. We continue to look for possible improvements as new evidence becomes available.
Why do you use these six factors to explain life evaluations?
The six factors reflect what’s been broadly found in the research literature to explain national-level differences in life evaluations. Some important variables, such as unemployment or inequality, do not appear because comparable international data are not yet available for the full sample of countries. However, our research has shown that wellbeing inequality affects average life evaluations more than income inequality. In addition, unemployment plays an important role in our equations using individual-level data, as illustrated by Figure 2.4 in World Happiness Report 2025.
It is important to understand that the six factors illustrate important lines of correlation rather than reflecting clean causal estimates since some of the data are drawn from the same survey sources. Some are correlated with each other or with other important factors for which we do not have measures. There are also two-way relations between life evaluations and the six factors in several instances. For example, healthy people are overall happier, but happy people are overall healthier.
Statistical Appendix 1 of World Happiness Report 2018 assessed the possible importance of using explanatory data from the same people whose life evaluations are being explained. We randomly divided the samples into two groups and used the average values gleaned from one group to explain the life evaluations of the other group. This lowered the effects, but only very slightly (2–3%). This assured us that using data from the same individuals is not seriously affecting the results.
How do you calculate the sub-bars in Figure 2.1?
The sub-bars in Figure 2.1 show what share of a country’s overall score can be explained by each of the six factors.
They are calculated by multiplying the average national score for each of the six factors (minus the value of that variable in Dystopia) by the coefficient on this variable in the first equation of Table 2.1. This product shows the average amount by which the life evaluation score is higher in a country because they perform better than Dystopia on that variable.
We explain Dystopia in more detail in our response to the next question.
Let’s consider an example using Brazil’s data…
First, we calculate the number of years by which healthy life expectancy in Brazil exceeds that of the country with the lowest life expectancy. Then, we multiply this number of years by the estimated coefficient for life expectancy in the first column of Table 2.1.
This product shows the average amount by which the life evaluation score is higher in Brazil because life expectancy is higher than in the country with the lowest life expectancy.
This process is repeated for each country and each of the six variables.
What is Dystopia?
Dystopia is an imaginary country that has the lowest scores observed for each of the six variables. Since life would be very unpleasant in a country with the world’s lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom, and least social support, it is referred to as Dystopia (in contrast to Utopia).
Dystopia acts as a benchmark against which all countries can be compared. No country has yet performed more poorly than Dystopia in terms of the six factors, which allows each sub-bar to have a positive value (or zero, in six instances).
What are the residuals?
Because of how these six bars are constructed, their combined value has always been less than the country’s average life evaluation. The difference between the combined six factors and the total life evaluations is the sum of two parts: (1) the average life evaluation in Dystopia, and (2) each country’s residual.
The residuals, or unexplained components, differ for each country, reflecting the extent to which the six variables either over- or under-explain the average life evaluation. These residuals have an average value of approximately zero over the whole set of countries.
It is always possible that other factors beyond our six make life in a country so awful that the negative residual may be larger than estimated life evaluations in Dystopia. Afghanistan is the country closest to being worse than Dystopia, especially for women.
How do I download the data used in the report?
The data we present in Figure 2.1 are available to download for free. This includes:
- The three-year averages for life evaluation from 2012 onwards
- The 95% confidence intervals for those averages
- The contributions of the six explanatory factors
If you require access to additional data from the Gallup World Poll, please refer to our data-sharing page for more information.
How are the country names chosen?
Country and territory names often change and are sometimes contested. For fairness and consistency, we use the United Nations M49 standard for all country names.
Why do smaller nations seem to be happier than larger ones?
Countries with small populations dominate the top rankings and, on average, countries with populations less than 15 million have slightly higher life evaluations (around 6% higher, or 0.3 on the 0–10 scale). In total, these smaller countries make up half of the countries polled, but they represent much less than half of the global population.
On average, people in these smaller nations enjoy greater healthy life expectancy and larger GDP per capita. They also face less corruption and are more likely to have someone to count on in times of trouble. Together, these differences account for the differences in average scores. However, benevolent acts are generally less frequent in these smaller countries.
In Western Europe, respondents in the smaller countries are happier on average, with a significantly higher sense of freedom and less perceived corruption. In Central and Eastern Europe, respondents in Poland and Romania are happier than those in the smaller countries, supported by a higher GDP per capita and a greater sense of freedom.
How does weather and climate affect countries’ happiness scores?
The Nordic countries consistently appear at the top of our rankings, but they don’t enjoy the pleasant tropical weather often associated with happiness. Although their winters are dark and cold, this is balanced out to some extent by their long summer days.
Weather changes tend to have small effects on happiness, which are influenced by people’s expectations and seasonal patterns. For example, people in the tropics are found to be happier during winter but less happy during spring, compared to people in more temperate zones.
Average weather is something that people adapt to, so it has little effect on the life satisfaction of those who are used to their local climate.
Why do the Nordic countries rank so highly when they have such high rates of suicide and antidepressant use?
Nordic countries used to have relatively high suicide rates in the 1980s but these rates have declined sharply since then. Suicide rates in the Nordic countries are now close to the European average and similar to rates in France, Germany, and the United States.
It is true that antidepressant use has risen sharply in many European countries over the last 20 years, but this trend is not correlated with changes in life satisfaction. There are several possible explanations for this rise including a reduction in mental health stigma, the development of new treatments, and changes in clinical guidelines.