'Caring and sharing' is key to our wellbeing

WHAT contributes to people's quality of life? The obvious factors include financial security, physical health, education, political freedom, a low crime rate, and trust in government.

- MARTIN HESSE

The World Happiness Report 2025, published in March and powered by Gallup World Poll data, among other sources, found that these factors featured strongly in the world's happiest nations.

Country rankings were based on a three-year average of each population's average assessment of their quality of life.

As in past reports, the Nordic countries were rated among the highest on the World Happiness Index.

The top five were Finland (for the eighth year in a row), Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Out of 147 countries assessed, South Africa came 95th, down from its position of 83rd in last year's report.

There was a continued upward trend for Eastern European countries such as Lithuania (16th), Slovenia (19th) and Czechia (20th).

At the bottom of the list were Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan.

The United States fell to its lowest-ever position (24th), with the United Kingdom hitting its lowest position (23rd) since the 2017 report.

It's a social thing

There's another group of factors that rate highly among the world's happiest people, and they centre around interpersonal relationships. How close-knit are the members of a particular society? How do they interact? Do they trust each other? How kind are they, and what is their perception of the kindness of others?

Researchers looked at the results of an experiment where a wallet was dropped in a public place and how often the wallet was picked up and returned to its owner, comparing them with what people would have expected when questioned in a poll.