World Happiness Report 2023: rankings, trust, and helping others

The first line of a happiness ranking usually attracts the most attention. It is tempting to ask what the winning country knows and whether its experience can be repeated. Yet a country’s position leaves many questions open: what respondents were asked, which years the answers cover, and how much circumstances differ within one country.

These questions make World Happiness Report 2023 worth reading carefully. It is a historical edition: the main ranking uses average life evaluations for 2020–2022. It describes that period rather than countries’ positions today.

The ranking draws on Gallup World Poll answers asking people to evaluate their own lives on a scale from 0 to 10, between their worst and best possible lives. Three-year averages are then used to compare countries. Everyday emotions, such as yesterday’s worry or enjoyment, are considered separately.

That distinction is familiar outside statistics. Someone can enjoy an evening while remaining dissatisfied with their living conditions. A difficult day can coexist with a sense that life overall is going reasonably well. In the ranking, “happiness” therefore refers primarily to an overall evaluation of life.

The ranking covered 137 countries. Finland ranked first for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Israel. The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand completed the top ten. Lebanon and Afghanistan appeared at the bottom. The results are presented in the chapter on happiness, trust, and social connections.

A national average cannot describe every resident. Two people in the same city may differ greatly in opportunity, health, support, and safety. One line in an international table is insufficient for a personal decision about employment or moving abroad.

The authors relate life evaluations to GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Respondents’ answers determine the ranking. The six variables are used to help explain differences rather than being added together to produce it.

The distinction matters. An association between social support and higher evaluations invites investigation of the conditions under which people can obtain help. It cannot provide a personal recipe with exact quantities of friendship, freedom, and income. Healthy life expectancy also should not be replaced simply with age, or perceived corruption with a count of proven offences.

The executive summary reports global average life evaluations in 2020–2022 remaining as high as in 2017–2019. The report also finds prosocial acts in 2022 still reported about one-quarter more often than before the pandemic. These measures included helping strangers, donations, and volunteering.

Those findings do not erase individual losses, ill health, or loneliness. A stable average can coexist with extremely difficult experiences in particular families and groups. “The pandemic barely affected well-being” would therefore be too broad a conclusion.

The authors consider trust and support as possible contributors to resilience. Keeping the research question precise matters: increased helping alongside stable average evaluations cannot identify helping as the sole cause. Several circumstances were changing at once.

The chapter on altruism considers recipients, helpers, and observers. It discusses relationships in both directions: well-being may accompany willingness to help, while some forms of helping may support positive experiences. The evidence behind each conclusion matters; an association alone cannot establish causation.

An everyday example shows why the conditions of help matter. One person asks a neighbour what is needed and brings agreed groceries. Another gives an expensive, unsolicited present and later reminds the recipient of a debt. Both have given something, but the recipient is now in very different relationships with them.

For helpers, having a choice about participation matters too. An evening of voluntary service and an obligation to keep covering someone else’s shift are different situations. The value of mutual support does not turn tiredness, refusal, or attending to personal needs into a moral failure.

Instead of comparing your mood with a national position, consider the relationships available to you. Whom could you call with a specific request, what help could you offer, and can either person comfortably decline? If help leaves resentment or a sense of unpayable debt, its terms may need discussing rather than an immediate demand for gratitude.

That offers a useful continuation of the ranking discussion. The table compares average evaluations; a closer reading brings attention back to everyday conditions. Income, health, trust, and access to help become concrete matters to discuss while leaving room for very different individual experiences.