The Netherlands is the 6th Happiest Country in the World
In the latest World Happiness Report, the Netherlands kept its position among the ten world’s happiest countries in 2024. The Netherlands is now ranked at the 6th position, while it was ranked 5th in 2023.
According to the OECD work-life balance index, the Netherlands is still on the 5th position after Italy, Denmark, Norway and Spain.
The World Happiness Report is published annually by Gallup, the United Nations and the University of Oxford. For the report, researchers surveyed people in more than 140 countries through the Gallup World Poll. Participants were asked to evaluate their happiness based on their own current lives evaluations on a scale from 0 to 10, with ten representing the best possible life for them and the worst being a zero.
The global survey data is compiled over the past three years and used to calculate the country’s happiness index using six factors that could explain different levels of happiness in each country.
The six different variables of the world happiness report:
- 1
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita
- 2Social support
- 3Healthy life expectancy
- 4Freedom to make life choices
- 5Generosity
- 6Perception of corruption
The Netherlands has performed well in the generosity index, GDP per capita, social support, and the corruption index, making it one of the least corrupt European countries next to Finland and Denmark.
The Top 10 Happiest Countries in the World in 2024
According to the World Happiness Report, these are the ten happiest countries in the world:
| Postion | Country | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Finland | 7.741 |
| 2 | Denmark | 7.583 |
| 3 | Iceland | 7.525 |
| 4 | Sweden | 7.344 |
| 5 | Israel | 7.341 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 7.319 |
| 7 | Norway | 7.302 |
| 8 | Luxembourg | 7.122 |
| 9 | Switzerland | 7.060 |
| 10 | Australia | 7.057 |
This year the top ten happiest countries remain mostly unchanged, especially the top three. Finland is the number one for the seventh year in a row. Overall, European countries dominating the top ten, mainly countries of Northern Europe.
A correlation between population size and happiness can be seen. The countries with the largest populations aren’t in the top 20 anymore. In the top 10 happiest countries, only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million. The Unites States (no. 23) and Germany (no. 24) dropped out of the top 20.
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