How happy are Canadians?According to the World Happiness Report 2026, Canada ranks 25th in happiness out of 147 countries — not bad, right?However, these numbers for 2025 actually show a drop in happiness in Canada — back in 2024, Canada ranked 18th, a seven-place drop in one year.Canada also ranked lower than the US' 23rd-place ranking, a boost from the Americans' 24th position in 2024..In comparison with a decade earlier, Canada ranked 6th in world happiness.New Zealand and Australia have also fallen significantly in the last decade — both were in the top 10 in 2015 and have declined to the top 20.Among young people under 25 years old who live in Western countries, including Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, life evaluations have dropped significantly over the past decade.The report attributes this drop to long hours spent scrolling through social media as a key factor. .The report also highlights the importance of strong family ties in boosting well-being, as well as other social connections."We think it's because of the quality of their social lives and the stability that they currently enjoy," stated Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Oxford economics professor who directs the Wellbeing Research Centre and co-edits the World Happiness Report, as reported by the Daily Mail."Latin America more generally has strong family ties, strong social ties, a great level of social capital, as a sociologist would call it, more so than in other places,’ he added.One ranking that has stayed consistent — Finland has been the world's happiest country for almost a decade..Other Nordic countries, like Iceland and Denmark, ranked second and third, with researchers finding they continue to dominate due to their mix of wealth, fair distribution of income, strong welfare systems, and long and healthy life expectancy. Countries ranked the lowest remained those in major conflict zones.Afghanistan is ranked the unhappiest country, with Sierra Leone and Malawi ahead of it.These rankings are based on responses from over 100,000 people from across 140 countries and territories, who were asked to rate their own lives..The study surveyed around 1,000 people per country, either by phone or in person, asking them to evaluate their lives on a scale of zero to 10. Among those under 25 in English-speaking and Western European countries, their scores dropped by almost one point over a decade.The report also stated the negative correlation between social media use and well-being is particularly high among teenage girls. Among English-speaking countries in 2026, none appeared in the top 10.
