Good news from the 2024 World Happiness Report: Happiness isn’t all downhill after our glory days. This year’s report focuses on how happiness fluctuates through different stages of life, finding that young adults’ happiness has been declining, but older adults’ satisfaction levels give us hope that it does get better.

The World Happiness Report (WHR) is an annual publication that tracks life satisfaction around the world. While they do use the information to rank countries based on how happy their citizens report being, it also goes beyond the numbers.

The happiest country in the world is… Finland. For the seventh year in a row, in fact. On a ten-point scale, Finland’s average life evaluation score came out at 7.74. There must be something in the water up in Scandanavia, as all five Nordic countries find themselves in the top 10, with Denmark giving Finland a run for its money with a score of 7.58. The least happy country in the world is Afghanistan, with a score of 1.72.

How did we fare? The happiness level of Om El Donia falls at 3.97, the lowest of our neighbors, with Saudi Arabia clocking at 6.59, Libya at 5.86, Tunisia at 4.42, Algeria at 5.36, and Morocco at 4.79. Of 143 countries polled, we sit at 127.

How do you measure happiness? Traditional metrics like GDP, household income, and unemployment focus on the technicalities of human behavior, but they don’t tell us anything about people’s happiness. WHR digs deeper into the rankings, using data gathered by Gallup on life evaluations, which surveys over 100k people across 130 countries.

Policymakers can no longer assume that their citizens’ happiness improves alongside the country’s GDP. Gallup’s World Poll assesses factors that contribute to happiness, like social support, good health, and a sense of purpose in life. WHR’s analysis of this data can be valuable for policymakers who want to create policies that promote the well-being of their constituents.

The lowdown:Historically, WHR data has shown that young adults aged 15-24 tend to be happier than older adults. The regular trend was happiness levels tend to decline after 24 but recover substantially once people reach middle age. This year, however, WHR reports that the happiness of that age group in the US, which has declined sharply since the late 2000s, is now lower than that of older people.

The sky’s always sunny in Europe, but we’ve seen better days. Central and Eastern Europe have seen a sharp rise of happiness at every age, as have countries in the former Soviet Union and East Asia. Happiness in the Middle East and North Africa shows a bleaker view, with happiness falling for every age group.

Boomers are leading the happiness game. The study shows that starting with Millennials in 1980, happiness has fallen y-o-y across the board, but anyone born before 1965 has seen life evaluation scores rise. So much so in fact that the happiness gap has increased by more than 20% over the past 12 years on every continent except Europe.

While people born after 1980 have reported decreasing life satisfaction levels, the study interestingly shows that they are more likely than other generations to help others in need. That’s not to say that older people turn a blind eye — the pandemic led to a significant worldwide and age-wide increase in benevolence.

The kids are alright… Right? Youth well-being has risen in most parts of the world, but North America, Western Europe, South Asia, and the MENA region have seen a decline in life satisfaction in youths. Evidence for children aged 10-15 is limited, but one thing we can tell is that girls have been steadily becoming less happy since 2019.

Is the pandemic to blame? WHR reported that prior to the pandemic, adolescent happiness was on the rise, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The trend took a turn for the worse during- and post-pandemic, and while the report doesn’t tie it in with the sharp increase in social media use since Covid-19, studies show that we now spend 20% more time on our phones.

The answer to happiness may be building a strong community. The study finds that social support affects happiness more than any other metric. Interestingly, the same trend of older adults being happier than younger adults correlates with the trend of both age groups’ feelings of social support. Older members of the population feel more socially supported than younger generations, even though the first group reports having less frequent actual interactions except with neighbors and community members.

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