She noted that the World Happiness Report focuses on the life satisfaction index, which is shaped by factors like economic stability and the quality of health services, rather than daily emotions or current events.
By Pesach Benson, TPS
Despite a year of war, Israel ranked as the eighth happiest country in the world according to the World Happiness Report 2025, released on Thursday.
The placing is a slight drop from last year’s fifth-place position and is Israel’s lowest ranking since 2020 when it held the ninth spot. The annual report is produced by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.
The annual report ranked the happiness of 143 countries based on life evaluation, positive emotions, and negative emotions, among other factors. Its release coincides the United Nations marking Thursday as the International Day of Happiness.
“Despite the year of war, Israel maintains its place in the top ten of the global happiness rankings and leads the world in the quality of social connections index,” said Anat Panti, a researcher in happiness policy at Bar-Ilan University.
She emphasized the resilience of Israeli society, which continues to rank highly despite the difficult circumstances brought on by the conflict that began on October 7, 2023.
According to Panti, “Israel continues to be ranked among the ten happiest countries in the world, this time in eighth place, despite the enormous challenges we have been facing since October 2023.”
She noted that the World Happiness Report focuses on the life satisfaction index, which is shaped by factors like economic stability and the quality of health services, rather than daily emotions or current events.
The report highlighted the strength of the country’s social connections.
“The most significant finding in the report highlights that young Israelis ranked first in the world in feeling that they have someone to turn to in times of crisis – an advantage that has proven to be particularly critical in the past year and a half,” Panti explained.
“The unique characteristics of Israeli society, such as family, faith, and strong social ties, serve as a shield for the population even in the most difficult circumstances, as reflected in this figure.”
However, Israel’s rank for worry, sadness, and anger climbed to 50th place in the world, up from 119th before the war.
Research recently released by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev found soaring levels of post-traumatic stress disorder among Israelis, particularly among young adults between 18-30.
Those ages were particularly affected due to their high rate of military service, personal losses, and displacement from their homes, the researchers said.
“A particularly worrying statistic this year is the sharp decline in public trust in government institutions, as reflected in the Corruption Perceptions Index, in which Israel fell to 109th place, compared to its ranking of 80th in 2021,” Panti noted.
Finland was ranked as the happiest country for the eighth consecutive year. Afghanistan edged Sierra Leone as the least happy country.
The data for the report was collected by Gallup in collaboration with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
