How the World’s Happiest Countries Are Not Entirely Happy

We have looked at the reasons that ranking schools or countries are flawed and also considered the world’s happiness in 2022.

Then and now, I’ve been concerned with happiness criteria.

The Happiest Countries

Again, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland top the March 2024 World Happiness Report rankings:

The orange countries are happier while purple places you at the bottom of the list. Canada, the U.K., and U.S. were, respectively, 15, 20, and 23. At #23, the U.S. left the top 20 for the first time in 12 years (since the Report began):

The Gallup Analysis

As always, ranking depends on your criteria. And, as Gallup tells us, age provides a different lens.

Only Iceland, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands had the happiest young and old people:

The reason the U.S. overall rank sunk was because the U.S. was #62 for people under 30. By contrast, our rank for the 60 and older group remained in the top 10. Above, you can also see that while Finland was #1, its young people and elderly were not at the top.

Below, you can see a graphic summary of life cycle happiness:

Our Bottom Line: Scoring Happiness

My concern with the World Happiness Report relates to the market system and the life cycle.

As Gallup explains, it uses a Cantrell Ladder. Basing your answer on the Cantrell Life ladder, you consider the difference between what you have and what you could have. If your aspirations (and imagination) are limited, then the gap is small and your score goes up. Consequently, you could be more content with your lot because there is little more you can climb to. The variables they’ve selected ignore competition, ambition, inventiveness, hard work. Emphasizing balance, complacency, and contentment, they sidestep the competition, the ambition, and the invention that elevated our living standards during the past two centuries. Although the market system minimized extreme poverty, it also created the inequality that I suspect (I have no data) feeds unhappiness.

To survey participants, Gallup has explained it this way:

As a result, rather than world happiness, we are really measuring world contentment. The reason is the Cantrell Life Ladder.

Then, further obscuring the realities of global happiness, the ranking gives us an age-related average.

Should the report have another name?

My sources and more: For starters, Gallup had the analysis of its own report.  Then, as did I, please check the 2024 World Happiness Report and note that Gallup’s  partners for this report were Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR Editorial Board. However, for the really superb consideration of happiness, do read this Atlantic article.