World's happiest countries: Finland wears the crown for seventh time, India at 126th position

In the freshly released 2024 World Happiness Report,Finland continuedto top the list for the seventh straight year. India laggedbehind in the list at 126th position.

The United States has dropped out of the list of 20 happiest countries in the world.As per the new data, which has been prepared by Gallup and its partners, the US for the first time in 12 years moved out of the list of top 20 countries.

Now, the United States stands at No. 23, down seven ranks from No. 15last year.

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As per the researchers, this is a reflection of how Americans, who are under 30, feel about their lives.

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"In the US, happiness or subjective wellbeing has decreased in all age groups, but especially for young adults," Gallup managing director Ilana Ron Levey said while speaking to CBS News.

"The World Happiness Report and the Gallup/Meta social connectedness data show peak loneliness for younger Americans. It's widely recognized that social support and feelings of loneliness are influential factors in determining overall happiness, and these dynamics differ across various age groups. The quality of interpersonal relationships may impact the well-being of younger and older individuals in distinct ways," she said.

Along with the US, the United Kingdom also dropped in ranking from the list of the world's happiest countries.

Britain slid from the 20th position and was ranked below Lithuania and Czechia.

Finland remains the happiest, Afghanistan ranks at the bottom

Finland, which is home to 5.5 million people, continued to remain the happiest country for seven consecutive years.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan once again was ranked at the bottom of the World Happiness Report.

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Iceland took the third place, whileSweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia were among the top 10 countries.

"In the top 10 countries, only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. In the whole of the top 20, only Canada and the UK have populations over 30 million," the report said.

How is the happiest country determined?

The World Happiness Report was prepared using the data collected by the Gallup World Poll which measured the average life evaluations of the individuals collected across three years from 2021 to 2023.

Six key factors using which the data was analysed by the experts are GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity and perception of corruption.

“These factors help to explain the differences across nations, while the rankings themselves are based only on the answers people give when asked to rate their own lives,” as per a statement released by the World Happiness Report.

The data collected for the six factors was collected by the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the Gallup World Poll.

(With inputs from agencies)