What does happiness mean in 2025?

😊 What makes people happy? It’s kindness — both giving and receiving it, according to the 2025 World HappinessReport (pdf) published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford. While not particularly shocking, the report, developed in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network to examine 147 countries, suggests that kindness plays a much bigger role than most of us realize. But first, the basics.

Who’s happiest? There are no surprises at the top: Nordic countries continue to dominate the happiness rankings. Finland holds its crown as the world’s happiest country, with Denmark and Iceland close behind, followed by Sweden. The gap between happiest and least happy is striking. Out of eight happiness points, Afghanistan recorded the lowest score ever measured: just 1.4. Afghan women face even more difficult circumstances, reporting an average of only 1.2. The four highest-scoring countries registered between 7.3 and 7.7.

For the first time ever, none of the large industrial nations — the US, Germany, Japan, or the UK — ranked in the top 20. Western industrial countries are generally less happy than they were before, with 15 showing significant declines. The US, Switzerland, and Canada have each dropped more than half a point.

One of the report’s most interesting findings is that we consistently underestimate how kind other people are. Researchers dropped wallets on streets around the world, and the return rates were far higher than people predicted. This matters more than you might expect — our happiness depends not just on how kind people actually are, but on how kind we believe them to be. In fact, expecting others to be kind is almost twice as powerful a predictor of happiness as the frequency of our own good deeds.

But loneliness among young adults keeps on climbing. Historically, adults aged 45 and above report higher levels of social isolation, and while the trend persists, younger adults are closing the gap. In 2023, 19% of young adults worldwide reported having no one they could count on for support, a 39% increase since 2006. Worse still, another 1.7 mn young people join those struggling with social disconnection every single year. Japan faces a particularly acute challenge in this category, with over 30% of its young adult population reporting social isolation. The US, Japan, and Australia share an unusual pattern, with younger adults feeling less connected than older adults, reversing the global trend.

An easy fix? Sharing a meal. The report found that people who share meals frequently are substantially happier, regardless of age, gender, culture, or religion. Senegal leads the world in meal sharing — residents there share about 12 meals with others per week. Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America report the highest levels overall, while South and East Asia are on the opposite end. The bottom of the barrel sees Bangladesh and Estonia averaging just three meals shared per week.

Kindness saves lives: Unhappiness leads to preventable deaths through substance misuse and people taking their own lives. The report examined these “deaths of despair” across 59 countries and found that increased “prosocial” behaviour — donating, volunteering, helping strangers — is reliably connected to fewer such deaths.

How did Om El Donia fare? Ranked 135 out of 147 countries in life satisfaction, Egypt is — surprisingly — among the nations that have seen the smallest declines in happiness. What makes our scores so interesting (and confusing) is the gap between our low happiness ranking and our remarkably strong social fabric. Less than 10% of our young adults report having no close relationships, and over 90% report having at least one person they feel close to. While the global trend shows declining social connection among young people, Egypt is one of only three countries — alongside Mexico and India — where connection quality among the youth is actually improving.

Egypt’s approach to helping others reflects a regional pattern. While the country ranks near the bottom for formal charitable donations — coming in at 143rd — and dead last for volunteering, we rank 38th in helping strangers directly. But this isn’t unusual in the region, where personal, immediate assistance is far more common than institutional giving. Egyptians are clearly willing to help — just directly rather than through organizations.

Sobering news with a dash of genuine hope. The 2025 World Happiness Report shows that inequality within countries has grown by a quarter over the past two decades. Social disconnection is on the rise. But human kindness is remarkably resilient, with the pandemic sparking a lasting surge in helpfulness, with kind acts remaining more than 10% above pre-pandemic levels globally — a sign that crisis can sometimes bring out the best in us. For countries like our own, the findings suggest that strong social bonds can provide real resilience even when other circumstances are difficult.