Hong Kong has fallen to its lowest ever position in the World Happiness Report, falling in the index for the sixth consecutive year to 90th place out of 147 territories.
The study was releasing on Thursday to coincide with the UN’s International Day of Happiness on Friday.
The city fell from the year 88 ranked 90th in the latest index, sandwiched between Georgia and Armenia. China ranks 65th, Taiwan 26th and Singapore 36th. The United States fell to 23rd and the UK to 29th. Macau was not surveyed.
Finland, Iceland and Denmark took the top spots, while residents of Malawi, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan were found to be the least satisfied.
For the second year in a row, no major English-speaking countries made the top 10. However, for the first time in the report’s 14-year history, a Latin American country appeared in the top five. Costa Rica moved up to fourth place, from 23rd place in 2023.
This year’s report focused on the use of social media. He said the decline in well-being among young people is linked to heavy use of social media, particularly among teenage girls in Western European and English-speaking countries.
Researchers said most American college students wish social media platforms didn’t exist. “They use them because others are using them, but they would prefer it if no one did,” the report said.
“The most problematic platforms are those where the primary use is passive, and the primary material is visual (encouraging social comparisons) and often comes from influencers.”
Survey of 100,000
The World Happiness Report 2025 is a partnership between the editorial board and pollster Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Center and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Based on a Gallup World poll, the poll asked about 1,000 people in each country to rate their current life as a whole using the image of a scale, with the best possible life ranked as 10 and the worst possible as zero. It used weights to construct nationally representative population averages, with the final ranking based on the three-year average of the samples.
Over 100,000 people in 140 countries and territories take part in the annual survey.
The report also correlated results along six key variables: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to lean on, freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.
“Taken together, these six variables explain more than three-quarters of the variation in life expectancy across countries and years, using data from 2006 to 2025,” the report said.
“The six variables were initially selected as the best available measures of factors established in both experimental and survey data, as they have significant associations with subjective well-being, and especially with life evaluations.”
