Young Americans are a lot less happy than older Americans, according to Gallup’s 2024 World Happiness Report.
People under the age of 30 are so unhappy, in fact, that they’ve dragged the United States out of the top 20 happiest countries in the world for the first time in the report’s history.
Overall, the United States now ranks 23rd. Last year, it held the 15th spot. For those under the age of 30, the United States is the 62nd happiest place on earth.
“The report, which ranks countries by age group for the first time, shows the U.S. decline is at least partly attributable to Americans under age 30 feeling worse about their lives,” Gallup noted in its report results.
The opposite is true for Americans over the age of 60, where the United States ranks 10th happiest.
According to Merriam-Webster, happiness is a state of well-being and contentment, or joy.
The disparity in happiness based on age began following the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Between 2006 and 2010, young people and old people in North America were equally happy. But their happiness has only diverged since then.
It isn’t only an American phenomenon. The so-called happiness gap is growing in many parts of the world, the researchers noted.
While people over the age of 60 are happier than people under the age of 30 in countries like the U.S. and Canada, young people are happier than old people in Central and Eastern Europe.
For its poll, Gallup asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, ranking the best possible life for them as a 10 and the worst possible life as a zero. Each respondent provides a numerical response on the scale.
The researchers measured positive emotions by the average of times an individual gave yes or no answers about laughter, enjoyment and interest. They measured negative emotions by the average an individual gave yes or no answers about worry, sadness and anger. They noted that positive emotions are more than twice as frequent as negative emotions.
The report did not state reasons for respondents’ expressions of happiness or unhappiness.
In the 2024 report, Lithuania ranked first in happiness for people under the age of 30 between 2021 and 2023, followed by Israel, Serbia, Iceland and Denmark. Denmark ranked first in happiness for people aged 60 and older, followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland.
Afghanistan was listed as the least happy country in the world.
Gallup conducts its World Happiness Report in partnership with the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the World Happiness Report Editorial Board.