Canada's Ranking In The World Happiness Report Has Dropped & It's 'A Substantial Fall'

At least we're happier than the U.S.!

Person holding a Canadian flag on the edge of a cliff overlooking a mountain range.

Person holding a Canadian flag on the edge of a cliff overlooking a mountain range.

Senior Writer

When it comes to Canada's happiness, the country's World Happiness Report ranking dropped and it's "a substantial fall."

In the new 2022 edition of the World Happiness Report, which is a publication by the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the happiest countries are ranked using global survey data to show how people in more than 150 nations evaluate their own lives.

This is the 10th anniversary of the report and the ranking of national happiness is based on data from 2019 through to 2021.

Coming out on top for the fifth year in a row is Finland. The Nordic country is followed by Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The rest of the countries in the top 10 are Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand.

After that is when Canada finally comes into the ranking. There's Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany and then Canada in 15th.

According to the report, "this marks a substantial fall for Canada" because the country had been ranked in the fifth spot overall just 10 years earlier in the first-ever World Happiness Report.

This 15th place finish also marks Canada's "lowest ranking ever" and the results have been on a downward trend recently.

In 2021, which was down from 11th place in 2020 and ninth in 2019.

Despite the country slipping in the ranking the last couple of years, we're still happier than the U.S., according to the 2022 report!

The U.S. finished just one spot behind Canada in the overall ranking, up from 19th place last year, and is followed by the U.K., Czechia, Belgium and France.

  • Senior Writer

    Lisa Belmonte (she/her) is a Senior Writer with Narcity Media. After graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), she joined the Narcity team. Lisa covers news and notices from across the country from a Canada-wide perspective. Her early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned Narcity its first-ever national journalism award nomination.

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