UK ‘wins’ second most miserable country in the world

What’s the meaning of life? It’s a big question. Some might say it’s the question. Should we dedicate ourselves to religion? Perhaps we should focus on raising the future generations. Or, maybe, life is just about being happy. We’re not philosophers, we don’t know the answer. But we do know that if happiness is the name of the game, the UK is losing.

No, that’s not just a guess based on how much us Brits like to complain. It’s based on an annual publication called the World Happiness Report (WHR), in which we seem to be getting lower scores every year. Last year a different report, this one from think tank Sapien Labs, named the UK as the world’s second most miserable country, so it’s no surprise that we aren’t exactly shooting up the WHR’s charts.

But happiness isn’t exactly something you can measure with a ruler or a scale. So how do the WHR get data on it? The short answer is by asking a lot of people in a lot of countries a lot of questions. They work with international pollsters who help them gather their info, then with data scientists to analyse it and create their final ranks. They compare nations across six key criteria: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.

They don’t just end up with information on happiness, they look into how culture can directly impact a person’s mood; for instance this year, it was found that sharing meals can be an ‘exceptionally strong indicator’ of happiness in an individual. Interesting, right? Here’s what you need to know about how the UK fared.

Where does the UK rank on the World Happiness Report?

This year the UK has come in 23rd. That’s not bad, especially when you consider that 147 countries are included in the chart, but it is lower than our spot at 20 last year. On the bright side we’re still beating the US – just. They came 24th this year.

In 2023 we came 19th, and in 2021 we were at 17. In 2020 we even nearly cracked the top ten, achieving our highest ever spot of 13th. So what’s gone wrong? The truth is, it’s not entirely clear.

There have been no nosedives from us in any of the major areas the WHR looks at, and our average satisfaction hasn’t gone down very much since 2012. It seems to be an ‘other people are getting happier’ situation, rather than a ‘we’re getting sadder’ one.

The top 10 happiest countries

Of the top ten happiest countries in the world, seven are in Europe. Not bad for the smallest continent in the world. Here they are:

1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. The Netherlands
6. Costa Rica
7. Norway
8. Israel
9. Luxembourg
10. Mexico

Find out more about why Finland is the happiest nation here.

The 10 least happy countries

The Unhappiest countries tend to be ones which have recently been affected by war, famine, or other natural disasters. This trend has followed this year; at least half of the following nations are currently recovering from civil unrest or nearby conflicts. These are the least happy nations in the world, with Afghanistan officially coming last in the ranking.

1. Afghanistan
2. Sierra Leone
3. Lebanon
4. Malawi
5. Zimbabwe
6. Botswana
7. Democratic Republic of Congo
8. Yemen
9. Comoros
10. Lesotho

You can see the full international list of nations on the WHR website here.