Highlights from the 2024 World Happiness Report
The 2024 World Happiness Report is out! I'm currently diving into the data to share key highlights and insights from the Canadian and North American perspectives. The report is 158 pages of relatively academic language and data from around the globe. Stay tuned for ongoing updates and commentary based on my experience and, hopefully, some excellent conversation with all of you.
How Does Canada Rank?
In Life Evaluation in 2021-23, Canada Ranked 15th with an average score of 6.9/8 (Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Israel placed in 1-5). The UK was 20th, and the USA was 23rd, for comparison.
In Ranking of Happiness for People aged 30 and below versus people aged 60 and above
Younger Canadians ranked 58th with a score of 6.4/8
Mature Canadians ranked 6th, scoring 7.34/8
Canada's Overall Happiness score declined by .59, declining for all four age groupings but significantly more for ages 30 and under and 30-44.
The group, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, shows that negative emotions are more frequent at all ages 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. The change since 2010 is again largest for younger Canadians aged 30 and below.
Young Canadians By The Charts
Canada registers 6th worst decline of 134 countries
For Young Canadians aged 30 and under, their average scores declined 1.140/8, which was the 6th worst decline in the world.
Older teens report significantly lower scores than pre-teens.
Children aged 11 reported the highest scores of the age group (7.54/10) while 13-year-olds reported a score of 7.00, and 15-year-old Canadians reported an average 6.63
15-24 Year-olds declining rapidly over time compared to older peers.
in 2016 15-year-old Canadian average happiness scores fell to match their 25+ peers in the 30 and under bracket, and since then have traded places.
Young Canadians moving in the opposite direction of global youth and young adults
Globally, female identifying young people have been improving the largest amount since 2005, while male identifying young people are catching up in recent years. Not specific to gender, this is the opposite trend seen across all young Canadians aged 13-30.
Loneliness in North America
In the four-country group, including North America, loneliness is almost twice as high among the Millennials as among those born before 1965.
Global Trends
In many but not all regions, the young are happier than the old. But happiness has fallen so sharply in North America for the young that they are now less happy than the old.
In 2021-2023, negative emotions were more prevalent for females than males in every region. Almost everywhere, the gender gap is larger at older ages.
Benevolence by generation
The COVID crisis led to a worldwide increase in the proportion of people who have helped others in need. This increase in benevolence has been large for all generations, but especially so for those born since 1980, who are even more likely than earlier generations to help others in need.
Generational Insights
Rankings differ a lot for the young and the old. In the United States and Canada, rankings for those aged 60 and older are 50 or more places higher than for those under 30.
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. However, this gap is narrowing in Western Europe and has recently reversed in North America due to falling life satisfaction among the young.
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.
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. However, in 2014, females began reporting higher life satisfaction than males, although the gap narrowed after the pandemic.energy and make them a priority, but when they receive the attention they require, you'll start to see problems becoming smaller and less frequent, issues getting handled faster and better, and success coming more efficiently and predictably.
More to come!