America Falls Out of Top 20 in World Happiness Rankings for the First Time

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For the first time, the United States didn’t make the Top 20 in Gallup’s annual listing of the world’s happiest countries. One year after finishing 15th, the U.S. placed No. 23 in this year’s survey, which asks individuals around the world to evaluate their happiness on a 10-point scale. Finland finished No. 1, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Australia. Canada ranked 15th, and the United Kingdom ranked 20th. 

“For the first time in the report’s 12-year history, the U.S. didn’t earn a spot among the top 20 happiest countries in the world,” Gallup’s Jon Clifton and Julie Ray wrote in an analysis.

America’s drop in rankings was largely driven by the attitudes of adults under 30, whose score of 6.3 ranks 62nd in the world among young people. For adults over 60, America ranks No. 10 (7.2) within that demographic.  

“In places like the U.S. and Canada, for example, rankings for those 60 and older are at least 50 places higher than for those under 30,” the Gallup analysis said. “However, in many countries, particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe, the reverse is true: The young are happier than the old.”

Life satisfaction among young people has noticeably declined over the past 15 years, the report said.

“Between 2006 and 2010, young people in Northern America and Australia/New Zealand were just as happy as old people,” the report said. “Their life satisfaction has declined sharply since then, from 7.451 to 6.676 in the latest calculation.” 

Although the report doesn’t address it, the decline in happiness among young people parallels the rise in social media and smartphones. (Instagram, for example, launched in 2010.)

“This year’s report focuses on the happiness of people at different stages of life, showing the relationship that we knew existed between age and happiness is far more nuanced than previously thought, and it is changing,” the report said. “These nuances and changes, more than which country is No. 1 or No. 101, show where the world’s happiness is headed -- whether to the top of the mountain or off a cliff. While the rankings get the headlines, the trends reinforce why it is important to keep asking people how they feel and to keep digging deeper.”

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Fizkes

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

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