Created on 23 April 2025

The World Happiness Report 2025 focuses on the impact of caring and sharing on people’s happiness and investigates the benefits for both givers and receivers of caring behaviour.

Key takeaways:

• Finland leads as the 1st happiest country in the world for the 8th successive year.
• The world is underestimating the kindness of strangers. People are kinder than we think.
• Well-being links to perceptions of others' benevolence and actual benevolence. Countries with higher happiness rankings show a greater belief in the kindness of others.
• People are happier when thinking of others and caring for others.
• The ‘Three Cs’ framework, namely Caring connections, Choice, and Clear positive impact, is introduced for amplifying the joy of giving.
• Sharing meals supports happiness and social connections.
• Household and family size are closely linked to happiness.
• More young adults across the world are feeling more lonely and isolated. Social connections can improve the happiness of young adults.
• Engagement in prosocial behaviours correlates with reduced deaths of despair.

Explore More:

• Watch a preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acRWQa-kfEU 
• View related UNSDSN news: https://www.unsdsn.org/our-work/world-happiness-report/
• Read the full report: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/

About the World Happiness Report

Published annually since 2012 by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and an independent editorial board. The report reviews wellbeing data and analysis to understand and improve the quality of lives around the world. The report combines wellbeing data from over 140 countries with high-quality analysis by world-leading researchers from a wide range of academic disciplines.

Interdisciplinary experts from economics, psychology, sociology and beyond analyze global happiness trends and influencing factors, including GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity, and perceptions of corruption, to explain the variations across countries and over time.

Know more: https://worldhappiness.report/about/