Where Data Tells the Story
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Measuring happiness is difficult, but one way to understand how satisfied people are with their lives is to simply ask them.
Self-reported life satisfaction is one key metric that researchers often rely on. It asks people to imagine a hypothetical ladder, where the best possible life for them is a 10, and the worst possible life is a 0. They then have to place their current position on the ladder.
The chart shows the three-year average scores from 2022 to 2024 for the four countries with the highest ratings and the four with the lowest.
Afghans reported the lowest life satisfaction in the world, far below any other country.
This incredibly low score has been replicated in other studies. Researchers recently compared Afghans’ life satisfaction with international datasets dating back to 1946 and found it was the lowest ever recorded. Two-thirds gave a score of 0 or 1 on the 10-point scale.