A group of six ethnically diverse friends in their 20s and 30s sit around a table outdoors laughing and eating a healthy array of salads and fruits and vegetables.

Kindness Makes Us Happy

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What makes you happy? A baby’s laugh? A leisurely good meal with close friends? Volunteering for a cause you believe in in your community?

What makes a society or entire country happy? That brings up larger questions of social support, good health, safety and freedom.

How Kindness Shapes a Country

Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has attempted to shed light on those questions by ranking countries from happiest to unhappiest based on the following question: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

“Sharing meals is [a universal practice] across countries and cultures, between individuals, and over time. … Those who share more meals with others report significantly higher levels of life satisfaction.”

Each year the World Happiness Report reviews the state of happiness across the globe and examines personal and national variations in happiness. The report is published by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

In the latest report, Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world. The U.S. came in at No. 24, and Canada was No. 18, out of 147 countries.

This year’s report highlights kindness—caring and sharing with others—as a key component to happiness.

How Kindness Promotes Joy

The 2025 report focused on the impact that caring and sharing of happiness had on others—expecting kindness from others, helping a stranger, volunteering, donating to others. The data showed that in more caring societies, the people who were struggling the most gained the most benefit from that care.

Other key findings included:

  • Kindness has power: We tend to underestimate the kindness of others, but when we witness and recognize kindness, it improves our own well-being.
  • Kindness is on the rise: Benevolence increased during COVID-19 in every region of the world—and has been sustained since then. Benevolent acts remain about 10% above pre-pandemic levels.
  • Motivation matters: Countries ranked higher in happiness when they had both higher rates of benevolent acts and when people believed that others around them would do the right thing. For example, the report noted higher happiness when individuals were more likely to believe that a stranger would return a lost wallet they found to its owner. They concluded that people feel best when the kind act is truly voluntary, the motivation is simply to help, and there is an obvious positive impact on the beneficiary.
  • Homegrown happiness: Strong family bonds and large families offer more happiness, as seen in Latin American cultures. In Mexico and Europe, those who live in a household of four to five people have the highest levels of happiness.  
  • Isolation has a cost: On the flip side, people living alone are much less happy than people who live with others. Young adults experience more loneliness worldwide—a trend that is increasing and has led to a loneliness epidemic in the U.S. According to the World Happiness Report, 19% of young adults across the globe reported in 2023 that they didn’t have anyone they could go to for support.

Sharing a Meal Makes Us Happy

We can’t necessarily control the happiness of our entire country, and we certainly can’t control anyone else’s motivations, but there are small things we can do to boost individual and community rates of happiness. One concrete area you can focus on is meal sharing.

The happiness report dedicated an entire chapter to meal sharing. “Sharing meals is [a universal practice] across countries and cultures, between individuals, and over time,” the report stated. “Sharing meals proves to be an exceptionally strong indicator of subjective well-being. … Those who share more meals with others report significantly higher levels of life satisfaction … across ages, genders, countries, cultures and regions.”

The report did not analyze why meal sharing was so connected to a person’s well-being. It’s unclear if people who are happier tend to have more shared meals—or if more shared meals improve happiness. It’s likely a bit of both.

“There is already considerable evidence that social connections contribute to greater well-being, and early suggestive evidence that sharing meals with others may promote social connection,” the report stated. This strong evidence “cries out” for future research, including what causes the link between happiness and shared meals.

In the U.S., more Americans across all age groups tend to eat alone, but especially young adults, according to the report. Here’s how you can help combat this and bring a bit of happiness into your life and the lives of others: Text a friend to invite them to meet up for dinner. Or get creative: Maybe schedule a standing lunch date with a co-worker or friend, organize a monthly potluck with friends or neighbors, or eat in the communal kitchen area if you work on-site. Think of little ways to socialize and share meals—it could bring a boost of happiness to your day.

The Happiest Countries in the World:

1. Finland

2. Denmark

3. Iceland

4. Sweden

5. Netherlands

6. Costa Rica

7. Norway

8. Israel

9. Luxembourg

10. Mexico

18. Canada

24. United States