SPOILER ALERT: Australia has an overall score of 10th in the Top 10 of Country Rankings by Life Evaluation 2021-2023. However, in Australia personal happiness is not growing but falling. More females than males are likely to express negative emotions or be classified as having lower life satisfaction. Those people under 30 years of age & those 30 to 44 years of age are the least happy. With the winners in the happiness lottery being Australians 60 years of age and older who - despite increased frequency of health problems & dwindling social interactions with the wider community - were found to be the happiest. In fact we belong to a sad little group of countries - United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - where our young & younger mature adults no longer appear to be travelling through life as well as is anticipated in a first world country with the 12th largest economy.
Gallup-University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre-UN Sustainable Solutions Network, World Happiness Report 2024, March 2024, excerpts:
Happiness
Happiness has generally increased for all age groups in East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the CIS, and fallen in South Asia, the NANZ group and the Middle East and North Africa....
Inequality in the distribution of happiness reflects inequalities of access to any of the direct and indirect supports for well-being, including income, education, health care, social acceptance, trust, and the presence of supportive social environments at the family, community and national levels. People are happier living in countries where the equality of happiness is greater....
This is the first report to consider equality of happiness by age group, set in a global environment of increasing inequality. At the global level, averaged across all ages and regions, inequality of happiness has increased by more than 20% over the past dozen years.
For the world as a whole, the average frequency of the selected negative emotions is higher for females than males, with the gender gap growing slightly from the young to the old.....
Happiness fell significantly in the country group including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, by twice as much for the young as for the old.....
For the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, happiness has decreased in all age groups, but especially for the young, so much so that the young are now, in 2021-2023, the least happy age group. This is a big change from 2006-2010, when the young were happier than those in the midlife groups, and about as happy as those aged 60 and over. For the young, the happiness drop was about three-quarters of a point, and greater for females than males....
The group including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand shows a quite different pattern than elsewhere. Negative emotions are at all ages more frequent for females than males, especially for those under 30. In this region, unlike anywhere else except Western Europe, negative emotions are more frequent among the young and least frequent for the old....
Changes in emotions between 2006-2010 and 2021-2023.
As shown in Figure 2.8, negative emotions are more frequent now than in 2006-2010 everywhere, only slightly so in East Asia and Western Europe. The big exception is in Central and Eastern Europe, where there has been a drop in the frequency of negative emotions in all age groups, in contrast to the rest of the world, but consistent with the happiness convergence taking place within Europe.
Increases in negative emotions have been most frequent in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, especially at higher ages. In Latin America there has been no increased frequency of negative emotions among those under 30, but a substantial increase in the older age groups. The CIS countries show a similar but somewhat muted pattern.
There is the reverse pattern in the NANZ countries where negative emotions have increased more for the young than for the old. No other region shows negative emotions increasing more for the young than for the old.....
...positive emotions, which include laughter, enjoyment, and doing interesting things, are based on experience the previous day, are almost everywhere more frequent in the youngest age groups, and are gradually less frequent at higher ages. The only exception is in the NANZ group of countries, which show a U-shape in age, with those 60+ having about the same frequency of positive emotions as those under 30....
Loneliness
Loneliness, when measured on the same scale as social support, is in all regions generally half as prevalent as social support. It displays somewhat matching patterns, being low where social support is high, and vice versa. Only in Southeast Asia, Western Europe and the NANZ countries is loneliness significantly higher for the Millennials than for the Boomers, a pattern that is reversed in Central and Eastern Europe.
An earlier study found age to be the most important factor in explaining loneliness differences among survey respondents in the United States. They found a peak in loneliness at age 20, with a steady age-related decline thereafter. This same phenomenon is evident in the Gallup/Meta data for the group of four countries including the United States. Although overall levels of loneliness are not unduly high in global terms, there is a significantly different pattern across the generations. Loneliness is almost twice as high among the Millennials than among those born before 1965. Millennials also feel less socially supported than Boomers in those countries, another place in which these countries look different from the rest of the world. This is despite the fact that actual social connections are much more frequent for Millennials than Boomers, and about as frequent as for Generation X.
Do the high prevalence of loneliness and the lesser feelings of social support help to explain the very large ranking disparities between the old and young for the NANZ countries....
Another interesting feature of the Gallup/Meta results, applicable in all global regions, is that the oldest members of the population, those in the boomer and earlier generations, feel more socially supported and less lonely than those in the younger generations despite having less frequent actual interactions with all groups except neighbours. This ability to gain more perceived support with fewer interactions likely helps to explain why life satisfaction so often rises after middle age even as the frequency and seriousness of health problems increases.....
Note: In 2022 loneliness averaged 27% across all countries, and 21% for the four-country group including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Child and Adolescent Well-being
• In most countries life satisfaction drops gradually from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood. Globally, young people aged 15-24 still report higher life satisfaction than older adults. But this gap is narrowing in Western Europe and recently reversed in North America due to falling life satisfaction among the young. Conversely, in Sub-Saharan Africa life satisfaction has increased among the young.
• Overall, globally, young people aged 15-24 experienced improved life-satisfaction between 2006 and 2019, and stable life satisfaction since then. But the picture varied by region. Youth wellbeing fell in North America, Western Europe, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. In the rest of the world it rose.
• Turning to younger ages (10-15), evidence is limited. In high income countries, life satisfaction has declined since 2019, especially for girls. For East Asian countries, life satisfaction increased in 2019. Before 2019, the evidence on trends is mixed.
• Girls report lower life satisfaction than boys by around the age of 12. This gap widens at ages 13 and 15, and the pandemic has amplified the difference. These points apply only to high-income countries since data on these young ages is rarely gathered elsewhere. For ages 15-24, global data shows no global gender differences from 2006 until 2013. But from 2014, females began reporting higher life satisfaction than males, although the gap has narrowed after the pandemic. This global gender gap masks regional differences, and is more pronounced in lower-income countries. There are no gender differences in high-income countries.
A breakdown of Australia's Happiness Ranking
2.1 Country Rankings by Life Evaluations in 2021-2023
Australia (7.057) in 10th position with a 95% confidence interval, in a field of 143 countries.
Note: National average life evaluations and measures of positive and negative emotions (by country and year) were established in terms of six key variables: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption.
2021-2023 Country Rankings
The top countries no longer include any of the
largest countries. In the top ten countries only
the Netherlands and Australia have populations
over 15 million. In the whole of the top twenty,
only Canada and the United Kingdom have
populations over 30 million.
.....the four countries in the NANZ group -
the United States, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand - all have rankings for the young that
are much lower than for the old, with the biggest
discrepancies in the United States and Canada
where the gap is 50 places or more....these gaps have
mainly arisen since 2010, and probably involve
some mix of generational and age effects.
2.2 Ranking of Happiness - the Young (Age below 30): 2021-2023
Australia (7.013) ranked 19th in a field of 143 countries, with a 95% confidence interval.
Table 2.2: Ranking of life evaluations by age group, 2021- 2023
Australia's ranking
All ages — 10th
The Young (under 30 yrs) — 19th
Lower Middle (30-44 yrs) — 14th
Upper Middle (45-59yrs) — 10th
The Old (60+ yrs) — 9th
Happiest — The Old
Least Happy — Lower Middle
2.4 Ranking of Happiness - the Old (age 60 and above): 2021-2023
Australia (7.304) ranked 9th in a field of 143 countries, with a 95% confidence interval.
2.5 Changes in Happiness: from 2006-2010 to 2021-2023
Australia (0.273) negative change ranking 102nd in a field of 134 countries, with a 95% confidence interval. Being the 33rd highest fall in happiness score ranking, the highest being Afghanistan (2.599).
The full 2024 World Happiness Report can be read and downloaded at:
https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/WHR+24.pdf
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