Words on wealth: the importance of caring and sharing for wellbeing

What contributes to people’s quality of life? The obvious factors include financial security, physical health, education, political freedom, a low crime rate, and trust in government. 

The World Happiness Report 2025, published in March and powered by Gallup World Poll data, among other sources, found that these factors featured strongly in the world's happiest nations. Country rankings were based on a three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life.

As in past reports, the Nordic countries were rated among the highest on the World Happiness Index. The top five were Finland (for the eighth year in a row), Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Out of 147 countries assessed, South Africa came 95th, down from its position of 83rd in last year’s report. There was a continued upward trend for Eastern European countries such as Lithuania (16th), Slovenia (19th) and Czechia (20th). At the bottom of the list were Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan.

The United States fell to its lowest-ever position (24th), with the United Kingdom hitting its lowest position (23rd) since the 2017 report.

It’s a social thing

There’s another group of factors that rate highly among the world’s happiest people, and they centre around interpersonal relationships. How close-knit are the members of a particular society? How do they interact? Do they trust each other? How kind are they, and what is their perception of the kindness of others?

Researchers looked at the results of an experiment where a wallet was dropped in a public place and how often the wallet was picked up and returned to its owner, comparing them with what people would have expected when questioned in a poll. Differences between the perceived and actual return of lost wallets showed that people underestimated the kindness of their communities. Actual rates of wallet return were about twice as high as people expected.

Believing that a stranger in your community would return your lost wallet is strongly correlated with happiness, the researchers found, with the Nordic nations ranking among the top places for expected and actual return of lost wallets.

Further findings in the report, which focused on the theme of “caring and sharing”, include:

• Sharing meals with others is strongly linked with wellbeing across all global regions, but the number of people dining alone in the US has increased 53% over the past two decades.

• Household size is closely linked to happiness. Four to five people living together enjoy the highest levels of happiness in Mexico and Europe, but many people in Europe are living on their own.

• In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support. This is a 39% increase from 2006.

• Deaths of despair (preventable deaths from suicide, alcohol abuse, and drug overdose) are less frequent in countries where benevolent acts are more frequent.

• Declining happiness and social trust in the US and parts of Europe combine to explain the rise and direction of political polarisation.

The spectre of inequality

We can’t talk about a country’s overall happiness or well-being without considering the disparity between the happy and the unhappy. As the report states, “The distribution of well-being among individuals and population groups is as important as its average”.

Previous editions of the World Happiness Report documented sharp increases in the inequality of well-being globally as well as the growing disparity between the top and bottom halves of a country’s population.

Comparing Happiness Index rankings with those of the Gini Index, which measures income inequality, we see that high-scoring Gini Index countries (of which South Africa ignominiously rates highest) tend to rate lower on the Happiness Index. An exception is Brazil, which is the 7th most unequal country in the world in terms of income disparity, but rates highly on happiness (36th).

How Brazil has managed that is hard to understand. Mexico, another country with high-income inequality, also rates highly on the Happiness Index (an impressive 10th). Could it be something about their societies? Both are strongly Catholic – families are relatively large and the communities uphold values that promote caring and mutual support. 

Quotes from two of the report’s editors emphasise the social aspect.

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre and professor of economics at the University of Oxford, said: “This year’s report pushes us to look beyond traditional determinants like health and wealth. It turns out that sharing meals and trusting others are even stronger predictors of well-being than expected. In this era of social isolation and political polarisation we need to find ways to bring people around the table again – doing so is critical for our individual and collective wellbeing.”

Jeffrey Sachs, president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said: “The findings in this year’s report reconfirm a fundamental truth: happiness is rooted in trust, kindness, and social connection. It is up to us as virtuous individuals and citizens to translate this vital truth into positive action, thereby fostering peace, civility, and wellbeing in communities worldwide.”

* Hesse is the former editor of Personal Finance.

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