Afghanistan Again Ranked World’s Unhappiest Country
Afghanistan has again been ranked the world’s unhappiest country, while Finland was named the happiest nation for the ninth consecutive year in the latest World Happiness Report. The report says Afghanistan has moved in the opposite direction since 2013, with Afghan women recording the lowest average life satisfaction levels.
The annual report is based on Gallup World Poll data collected through interviews with people in more than 147 countries. It measures life evaluations as well as positive and negative emotions, and ranks countries using factors including quality of life, economic conditions, life expectancy, freedom, trust, fairness and confidence in government.
According to the report, Afghanistan had the lowest level of positive emotions and was also among the five countries with the highest negative emotions. It said the average life evaluation for Afghan women stood at just 1.2 out of 10, underscoring the extreme hardship many women face in the country.
Iceland, Denmark and Costa Rica followed Finland among the top-ranked countries, while Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg and Switzerland also placed in the global top 10. Costa Rica’s rise to fourth marked the best result ever recorded for a Latin American country in the report.
At the bottom of the ranking, Sierra Leone was listed as the second unhappiest country after Afghanistan with a score of 3.2, while Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi were also among the least happy countries. Afghanistan was the only country in the report to score below 3 points overall, highlighting how far it fell behind even other low-ranked states.
The report was produced in partnership with Gallup, the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and an editorial board for the annual publication. Its findings are closely watched because they combine survey responses with broader indicators that shape how people judge their lives.
For Afghanistan, the findings add to a growing body of international evidence showing deep distress across society, especially among women. Researchers have repeatedly linked low wellbeing to insecurity, economic collapse, social restrictions, weak public trust and the loss of opportunities, all of which continue to weigh heavily on everyday life.
The latest ranking reinforces the scale of Afghanistan’s human crisis and the widening gap between it and the rest of the world on basic wellbeing. While Finland’s result reflects stability and strong social trust, Afghanistan’s position points to a country where daily life remains defined by hardship, fear and very limited hope for improvement.
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