Life-satisfaction is assessed by means of surveys in general population samples. Mean scores may be inflated in some countries due to under sampling of rural and illiterate population. This distortion is partly corrected by weighting afterwards, but may still affect the scores. This means that the real differences in life-satisfaction are probably somewhat greater than appears in these data.
Data from 2010 up to and including 2019.
If the below mentioned questions had been used more than once in this era. the average score is used.
Ten-year averages are used for two reasons:
a) To cover a considerable number of nations. Since data is not available every year for most nations, presentation by one-year periods would would leave us with small numbers of mostly western nations.
b) To reduce measurement bias. Random effect on responses in particular to surveys, such as the weather during the interview, will balance in an average of multiple surveys.
The scores are based on responses to a question about satisfaction with life, the answers to which were rated on a numerical scale of at least 10 steps. The questions differ slightly in wording and answer format. Questions of this kind are in the core questionnaire of the World Values Survey (measure code
O-SLW-c-sq-n-10-a and the European Social Survey (measure code
O-SLW-c-sq-n-11-cd).
Questions are sorted into equivalent measure types. Data were taken from the tables for type
10-step numeral LifeSatisfaction
and the
11-step numeral LifeSatisfaction. Ratings made on scale 1-10 were transformed linearly to range 0-10.
Responses to above-mentioned questions on life-satisfaction are available for 125 nations during this period. For 32 nations in which no such questions had been used we estimated average life-satisfaction using scores on two different measures of happiness.
1) a measure of the affective component of happiness (
A-AB-yd-mq-v-2-fb or
A-AB-yd-mq-v-2-tb).
2) a question on the cognitive component of happiness (
C-BW-c-sq-l-11-c). Using a set of 115 nations in which all three measure types had been used, we calculated the combination of the two component measures that best predict overall life-satisfaction. This estimation is described in EHERO working paper 2021-3. The resulting measure is coded
M-AC-*-mq-*-*-a.
The use for these data for estimating livability of nations is discussed in the Introductory Text to this section on 'Distributional Findings in Nations',
chapter 5: Validity of happiness as an indicator of livability .
This list is included in the datafile 'States of nations' as variable Happiness LSBW10.11 plus imputations_2010.2019.
Cite as:
Veenhoven. R.. Average happiness in
160 nations 2010-2019. World Database of Happiness. Rank report Average Happiness. Internet: worlddatabaseofhappiness-archive.eur.nl/hap_nat/findingreports/RankReport_AverageHappiness.php