Life Satisfaction by country
Average self-reported life satisfaction on a 0-10 ladder (Cantril ladder). The most-tracked subjective wellbeing metric in cross-country comparison. Nordic countries top the rankings (7.4-7.5); South Africa and Türkiye sit near the bottom (4.9-5.7).
Global trend
Mean stress score across all countries for which data is available, over the last 12 months.
Where the pressure is concentrated
The five most-affected and five least-affected countries on this indicator right now.
Most affected
- 1India4.00 0-10 scale100
- 2South Africa4.90 0-10 scale78
- 3Turkey5.70 0-10 scale58
- 4South Korea5.80 0-10 scale55
- 5Japan5.90 0-10 scale53
Least affected
- 1Sweden7.40 0-10 scale15
- 2Switzerland7.40 0-10 scale15
- 3Norway7.30 0-10 scale18
- 4Netherlands7.10 0-10 scale23
- 5Israel7.10 0-10 scale23
Full ranking
All 25 tracked countries, ordered from most to least affected. Click any country to see its full composite breakdown.
| # | Country | Raw value | Stress score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 4.00 0-10 scale | 100.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 2 | South Africa | 4.90 0-10 scale | 77.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 3 | Turkey | 5.70 0-10 scale | 57.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 4 | South Korea | 5.80 0-10 scale | 55.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 5 | Japan | 5.90 0-10 scale | 52.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 6 | Argentina | 6.00 0-10 scale | 50.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 7 | Brazil | 6.10 0-10 scale | 47.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 8 | Poland | 6.10 0-10 scale | 47.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 9 | Italy | 6.30 0-10 scale | 42.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 10 | Spain | 6.50 0-10 scale | 37.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 11 | Mexico | 6.50 0-10 scale | 37.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 12 | Singapore | 6.50 0-10 scale | 37.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 13 | France | 6.60 0-10 scale | 35.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 14 | UAE | 6.70 0-10 scale | 32.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 15 | United States | 6.70 0-10 scale | 32.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 16 | Germany | 6.80 0-10 scale | 30.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 17 | United Kingdom | 6.80 0-10 scale | 30.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 18 | Canada | 7.00 0-10 scale | 25.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 19 | New Zealand | 7.00 0-10 scale | 25.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 20 | Australia | 7.10 0-10 scale | 22.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 21 | Israel | 7.10 0-10 scale | 22.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 22 | Netherlands | 7.10 0-10 scale | 22.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 23 | Norway | 7.30 0-10 scale | 17.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 24 | Switzerland | 7.40 0-10 scale | 15.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 25 | Sweden | 7.40 0-10 scale | 15.0 | 2024-12-31 |
Why it matters
Life Satisfaction is a contributing indicator to the Mental meta-index, one of the five dimensions of The Human Index composite. Higher raw value = less stress.
Movements in this indicator are tracked daily and feed into every country's composite score on the next cron cycle.
Recent analysis
All Pulses →Source & methodology
Raw values are normalized to a 0–100 stress scale per the bounds documented in the codebase. See methodology for the full normalization and band-threshold derivation.