This analysis reports on life satisfaction and happiness trends across 22 countries, suggesting emotional well-being is pressured by global stressors.
This study examines changes in well-being globally, regionally, and nationally (N = 207,919) using Global Flourishing Study data. Life satisfaction declined consistently worldwide with large effect sizes (e.g., Asia: d = –0.41; Nigeria: d = –0.77). Life worthwhileness showed moderate declines across most regions (Asia: d = –0.39; Middle East & Africa: d = –0.23). Happiness declined moderately and relatively uniformly, especially in Asia (d = –0.37), the Middle East & Africa (d = –0.35), and North America (d = –0.13), while Europe and Latin America showed mostly non-significant changes. Country-level effect sizes ranged from negligible to large, indicating heterogeneity. The widespread decline in happiness suggests emotional well-being is more sensitive to global stressors than life satisfaction or worthwhileness. These findings highlight global well-being under strain and the importance of large-scale longitudinal data.
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Hill et al. (2025) studied this question.
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