‘Land of Thousand lakes’ named as world’s happiest country for 7th year in a row

For the eighth consecutive year, a country known as the ‘Land of Thousand Lakes’ has been awarded the world’s happiest country.

Finland is famed for its saunas, reindeer, and mythology, as well as its excellent standard of living.

The World Happiness Report, released each year on World Happiness Day, scores more than 140 nations on how happy they are based on Gallup World Poll data.

The research examines characteristics such as life expectancy, trust in government, average income, and social assistance, and Finland regularly rates well in all of them.

From subsidised daycare to a focus on work-life balance, the Finnish state is based on happiness policies. In fact, constructing and sustaining a ‘infrastructure of happiness’ is vital to its culture.

The public services in Finland contribute to people’s happiness. Only a small portion of the healthcare system is private, and public transit is both dependable and economical.

In terms of salaries, Finns are quite well compensated: average incomes will peak at €47,527 per year in 2021, or around £40,588.

Denmark was in second place, followed closely by Iceland and Sweden. Norway, a fellow Nordic country, finished eighth.

Globally, this year’s survey indicates that people born before 1965 are significantly happier than those born after 1980, with Millennial life assessments declining with each year of age.

However, this is excellent news for the elderly, as life satisfaction among Boomers grows with age.

At the opposite end of the scale, the United Kingdom ranked twentieth, down from 19th last year.

Serbia and Bulgaria, ranked 37th and 81st, have had the greatest improvements in average happiness scores since the survey’s inception in 2013 – Serbia by 69 places and Bulgaria by 63.

Similarly, from 2013 and 2024, Latvia (46th) and Congo (89th) saw strong gains, rising 44 and 40 places, respectively.

For the first time since the World Happiness Report’s publication in 2012, the United States (23rd) has dropped out of the top 20. This has been mostly driven by declining well-being among Americans under the age of 30, while Afghanistan is ranked bottom in the world as the world’s ‘unhappiest’ country.

‘Once again the World Happiness Report uncovers some special empirical insights at the cutting edge of the wellbeing research frontier,’ said Prof Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at Saïd Business School, and an Editor of the World Happiness Report.

‘Piecing together the available data on the wellbeing of children and adolescents around the world, we documented disconcerting drops especially in North America and Western Europe. To think that, in some parts of the world, children are already experiencing the equivalent of a mid-life crisis demands immediate policy action.

‘It is a great privilege and responsibility for our Centre at Oxford to become the next custodian of the World Happiness Report and we’re committed to continuing to give the world the best evidence on the state of global happiness in collaboration with our partners.’