Which countries have gained or lost the most happiness in the last thirteen years?
Examining the World Happiness Report to identify largest changes in average life evaluation
With Finland topping the ranking for the eighth year in a row, Denmark the second for the seventh year in a row, and most of the usual suspects in the top 10, the competition at the top of the World Happiness Report starts to get a bit boring.
So, I decided to examine who are the biggest gainers and losers of happiness and what stories they tell?
World Happiness Report has been published since 2012, so we have average life evaluation data for countries for a period of 13 years, which allows us to track how countries have changed during this period. For each country, an average score is calculated based on one question where people are asked to evaluate their life on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life and 10 is the best possible life.
The biggest gainer during this period is Serbia, whose average life evaluation score has increased a stunning 1.8 points from 4.8 to 6.6. Having gone through the wars and insurgencies between 1991 and 2001 that broke down the former Yugoslavia into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Makedonia, and eventually Kosovo, this area had the most to gain in Europe in terms of life evaluation. No wonder then that we find Kosovo as the 4th and Bosnia and Herzegovina as the 7th biggest gainer in the world during the same period. Building a relatively democratic and stable state after a war seems to be a good recipe for increasing citizen well-being.
Another group of countries sticking out in the top 10 of gainers are the countries that regained their independence in 1991 after being part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact. Bulgaria was the second biggest gainer (from 4.0 to 5.6), Romania the third (from 5.0 to 6.6), and Lithuania the fifth (from 5.4 to 6.8), with Georgia, Armenia, and Latvia also in the top ten. Of these countries, Lithuania (16th) and Czech Republic (20th) have already broken into the top 20 in the world. Lithuania also boasts the happiest people in the world, when only young people under 30 are counted. Having had good education systems and relatively well-functioning institutions, these countries have seen a rapid increase in quality of life since the collapse of the Soviet Union gave them the freedom to build more democratic forms of governance.
The only non-European country in the top 10 gainers is Togo, a country on the West coast of Africa that gained independence from France in 1960 but was ruled in an autocratic fashion by President Eyadéma Gnassingbé until his death in 2005. While his son has been the president ever since, the country has taken increasing steps towards better-functioning democracy, with a 2024 constitutional reform transforming most power from thepresident to the parliament. While Togo is still far from thetop with a 4.3 life evaluation ranking it 127th of the 147 countries, in 2012 it was still the least happy country in the world from which data was available. Along with improving democracy and government accountability has come a rapid increase in citizen life evaluation.
On the sadder end of the spectrum, we find Afghanistan. The country started very low, at an average of 3.6 in 2015 ranking it as the 6th saddest country in the world but saw a decline that meant that already in 2020 it was the least happy country in the world with an average of 2.6. After that the US troops pulled away, the Taliban took over, and the oppression campaign against women that has been called a gender apartheid intensified, Afghanistan plunged to an average score of 1.4, which is the lowest score ever recorded for any country. As 0 is the worst possible life and 10 is the best possible life, the vast majority of Afghans feel that they are currently living very close to the worst possible life.
Things haven’t been going much better for Lebanon which has seen a national crisis since 2019 pushing the country close to being a failed state. Along with failing institutions and widespread poverty, their average life evaluation has declined from 4.9 in 2012 to 3.2 today, making it the third saddest country in the world. Close by Jordan is also in the top 10 countries with significant declines in life evaluation. Large decreases in happiness were also experienced in the Sub-Saharan countries of Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Congo, and Eswatini which are all in the bottom 20 of the least satisfied countries in the world. Also, Sierra Leone and Liberia on the West Coast of Africa have experienced a dramatic decline in average life evaluation.
In total, 11 countries around the world have seen a decline of more than one full point in the eleven-point scale during these 13 years. Venezuela has the notorious honor of being the only American country on this list, ranking 19th in the world in 2012 with an average of 7.0 but plunging to a current ranking of 82th with an average of 5.7. Some other countries with surprisingly large declines in life evaluations include Switzerland (-0.71) and Canada (-.67). Despite the decline, Canada whose ranking dropped from 5th to 18th is still doing better than the United States that has seen its ranking drop from 11th to 24th in the world during the same time.
Interestingly, Ukraine’s decline in life evaluation during this period, from 5.1 to 4.7 is quite similar in size to that of the United States, despite the fact that Russia has been in active war with them starting with the annexation of the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and intensifying with the full attack in 2021. The life evaluation of the country has been surprisingly resilient perhaps due to the fact that war has been constrained to the eastern side of the country, the institutions within the country have remained functional, and people’s sense of helping each other and trust in their government have dramatically increased. While life evaluations have remained more stable, people’s sense of worry has seen a dramatic increase.
All in all, the biggest gainers and losers tell a relatively consistent tale. War, especially civil war, institutions collapsing, increased poverty, and oppressive authoritarian governments all push people’s life evaluations down. In contrast, the decades after such catastrophes tend to see a steady increase in life evaluation when well-functioning institutions are rebuilt and the economic situation of the citizens improves. While well-functioning institutions and a high sense of trust have been used to explain why the Nordic countries top the ranking, improvements or collapses of such institutions seem to explain quite well why some nations gain or lose in their average life evaluations.
People deserve well-functioning institutions that are responsive to citizens. Unfortunately, democracy is in decline globally, with only 45% of the world’s population living in democracies. This is a trend we need to reverse if we want to take seriously the attempt to build better lives for humanity. As this is against the agenda of the authoritarian leaders, we who have the privilege to live in democracies should be pushing this agenda globally.