Happiness is how much one likes the life one lives. Average happiness in nations is expressed in the mean of responses to single questions on happiness in general population surveys.
Links in the right hand column lead to the listing of average happiness in nations sorted by measure type on the old website.
| Variable | Item type and code in item bank | Code | Nation | Since | Source World Database of happiness (WDH) Distributional Findings in Nations Transformed scores (1) |
| Happiness | 3-step, all variants | m-hl3_us | USA | 1947 | WDH table 111a |
| 3-step, O-HL/c/sq/v/3/aa (2) | m-hl3a_us | USA | 1947 | WDH table 111a | |
| 3-step, O-HL/g/sq/v/3/d | m-hl3d_us | USA | 1947 | WDH table 111a | |
| 4-step, all variants | m-hl4_us | USA | 1946 | WHD table 111b | |
| Life satisfaction | 2-step, O-SLP/g/sq/v/2/b | m-ls2_us | USA | 1979 | WDH table 121a |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_at | Austria | 1995 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_be | Belgium | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_de | Germany (re-united) | 1990 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_dee | Germany (former East) | 1990 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_dew | Germany (former West) | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_dk | Denmark | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_eu9* | EU-9 (3) | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_fr | France | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_gr | Greece | 1981 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_ie | Ireland | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_it | Italy | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/ variants a,e,f | m-ls4a_jp | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLW/c/sq/4/e | m-ls4b_jp | Japan | 1992 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, mean ls4a_jp and ls4b_jp | m-ls4_jp | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_lu | Luxemburg | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_nl | Netherlands | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_pt | Portugal | 1985 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_sp | Spain | 1985 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | m-ls4_uk | UK (Great Britain) | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 5-step, O-SLW/u/sq/v/5 variants a,g,k,l | m-ls5_jp | Japan | 1978 | WDH table 121d | |
| 4+5 step, mean ls4_jp and ls5_jp | m-ls45_pj | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c+d | |
| 11-step, O-SLW/c/sq/n/11/a,d,ca | m-ls11_au | Australia | 1975 | WDH table 122e | |
| BestWorst | 11-step, C-BW/c/sq/l/11/a | m-bw11_us | USA | 1959 | WDH table 131b |
| Mixed items | mean of: hl3_us, hl4_us, ls2_us, bw11_us | m-mix_us | USA | 1946 | WDH tables 111a+b, 121a, 131b |
1) Means transformed to response range 0-10. Method explained in section 7/3.3 of the introductory text.
2) GSS director Smith (1979) advises to drop 1972 from time series analysis because the item was placed in an unusual sequence in the questionnaire. The 2002 rating of happiness may have been depressed by the 9/11 terrorist attack 6 month before.
3) Weighted average: EU-9 (2015) = Belgium x 0.036 + Denmark x 0,18 + France x 0,2137 + West-Gernamy x 0,260 + Ireland x 0,015 + Italy x 0,195 + Luxemburg x 0,002 + Netherlands x 0,054 + UK x 0,208
Same variable in datafile ‘States of nations’ Happiness