A belief in the kindness of others is key to individual happiness — and to the happiness of an entire country, according to the new World Happiness Report.
Released today on the UN’s International Day of Happiness, this year’s ranking of the world’s happiest countries focused for the first time on benevolence, or how caring a country is.
This year, Finland is once again the world’s happiest country, owing to the strong trust its citizens have in one another. Meanwhile, Canada’s ranking continues to decline, dropping to 18th place, from 15th in 2024.
The report is a partnership between the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by data from Gallup and analyses by leading well-being researchers including the University of Toronto’s Felix Cheung.
Considering the overarching pessimism of the world today, Cheung says the findings give us reasons to have hope for humanity.
We found that people are a lot kinder than we give them credit for. Having trust in your neighbour — and your neighbour proving to be trustworthy — is important for well-being.
“We found that people are a lot kinder than we give them credit for,” says Cheung, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Canada Research Chair in Population Well-Being.
“Having trust in your neighbour — and your neighbour proving to be trustworthy — is important for well-being.”
For the report, the researchers examined acts of kindness like donating, volunteering and helping strangers. They also measured how people evaluated their own life satisfaction, and people’s perceptions versus reality of others’ helpfulness.
In an experiment that looked at people’s expectations for getting their lost wallets back, the actual rate of wallet return was around twice as high as people assumed. The more people believe their wallet will be returned, the happier they are — and the happier the population is.
“In Finland, people are exceptionally trusting of their community. In the wallet study, Nordic countries across the board believed most strongly that their lost wallets would be returned, and that belief held true,” says Cheung.
For the first time, no major industrialized powers cracked the top 20 — for instance, the U.S. has fallen to its lowest position ever, ranking 24th. Generally, the western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010.
When one person is unhappy, it’s an individual issue. When an entire population is unhappy, it becomes a societal issue. Happiness isn't solely up to you — it's a shared responsibility. It’s important now more than ever that we’re able to lean on each other.
Cheung says this highlights how the individualistic values, political polarization and solo living arrangements of some of these lower ranking countries could be harming personal and societal well-being.
The report also finds that the pandemic-era trend of people being more helpful is starting to fade, though the rate of acts of kindness is still 10 per cent higher than 2017-2019 in nearly every country.
“I’m curious if this is a hint that we could be reverting to our unhelpful ways, which will have an effect on our overall happiness.”
For people who are struggling to feel happy, Cheung says the data clearly shows people are a lot more helpful than we think they are — so don’t be afraid to ask for help and return the favour if you have the capacity and resources to do so.
He emphasizes that unhappiness can be a natural response to difficult situations — it’s adaptive and doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.
This is also where our culture’s overemphasis on self-help can backfire.
“When one person is unhappy, it’s an individual issue. When an entire population is unhappy, it becomes a societal issue,” he says.
“Happiness isn't solely up to you — it's a shared responsibility. It’s important now more than ever that we’re able to lean on each other.”
Watch the video:
Felix Cheung and Yeeun Archer Lee, a former postdoctoral researcher in U of T's Department of Psychology and now an assistant professor at Trinity Western University, share findings from Chapter 2 of World Happiness Report 2025: "Caring and sharing: Global analysis of happiness and kindness."