South Africa just makes it into top 100 of World Happiness report

South Africa has been ranked 95 in the UN-sponsored World Happiness Report, marking a dip in satisfaction levels after the country ranked 83rd last year.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritius leads the happy pack, ranking 78th in the world.

Published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the report ranks the world’s happiest countries based on some key life indicators, including social support, freedom and health life expectancy.

The 20th of March marks UN’s International Day of Happiness.

The ranking is based on a three-year average of evaluations of life satisfaction and looks at GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

For the eight year, Finland has been ranked as the world’s happiest country and experts say the strong welfare system and access to nature are some of the factors contributing to people’s positive mental state.

The top 10 includes Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Norway, Israel, Luxembourg and Mexico.

South Africa has been ranked in 95th position, out of 147 countries.

According to the report, economic instability, high unemployment, widespread social inequality and governance concerns are some of factors contributing to South Africa’s ranking.

The corruption perception, which speaks to the lack of trust people have in public institutions, remains high as well as inequality concerns in the country. These were highlighted as the country was ranked 10 in terms of expected wallet returns by strangers.

The study shows that countries with strong social cohesion tend to have higher happiness rankings.

The report also gave some recommendations for countries like South Africa, suggesting policy reforms that will zone in on strengthening economic opportunities, reducing corruption, improving governance, expanding public healthcare and social support amongst others to rebuild social trust.

The bottom five countries are Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

The United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) slipped down the list to 23rd and 24th respectively – the lowest-ever position for the latter.

The report says one of the factors for the US to drop to its lowest happiness ranking is partly due to a rise in the number of Americans eating their meals alone.

Afghanistan, dealing with a humanitarian issue since the Taliban regained control in 2020, once again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world.

the 2025 world happiness report is out. I think his is a report that everyone who thinks about progress should reckon with more

change in life evaluation 2011-2024 pic.twitter.com/u4GAihDPL0

— Jake (@jkeatn) March 20, 2025

I find the happiness index report hard to trust.

If someone earning ten times less than an average Finnish can still celebrate their festival with such joy, it suggests that the report may need to be reconsidered.

India was, is, and always will be a happy country.❤️💐🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/BLRZ12ROvN

— অম্বিকেশ (@i3JPRAiBZlTBYSb) March 20, 2025

We should be cautious in drawing conclusions from the World Happiness Report, but not dismiss it.

The findings are worth pondering. But we will never know whether high happiness self-reports mainly reflect happiness, or the desire to be seen as happy, or just complacency.

— Neil Thin (@NeilThin) March 20, 2025

The woke radical left bashes Trump for this report, but this is based on assessments from 2022 to 2024. Therefore, Biden owns this decline in happiness for Americans. https://t.co/vUck8L16qe

— Emjae (@EmjaeS99) March 20, 2025

Israel remains in the top ten list of happiest countries in the world despite an anxious year with the wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, an annual global survey released on Wednesday shows. Israel ranked in 8th placed in the World Happiness Report 2025, down…

— Franck Dubarry (@FranckDubarry) March 20, 2025