How Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria Ranked ahead of the U.S. in Human Flourishing: And What We Can Do about It
August 12, 2025
It’s no secret that the United States is not the happiest country on earth. For years, countries in Northern Europe—Denmark, Finland, and Sweden—have dominated global happiness rankings. But a new lens on well-being, one that looks beyond happiness to assess overall human flourishing, places the U.S. behind even countries like Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria.
Led by Byron Johnson at Baylor and Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard, and partnered with Gallup, the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) is a bold effort to address one of humanity’s oldest questions: what makes a good life? With more than 200,000 participants across twenty-two countries and territories representing roughly 64 percent of the world’s population, the study aims to capture a more complete picture of human well-being. Its longitudinal design will also allow researchers to track how lives change over time in the next few years, reinterviewing the same participants in each country.
