Lebanon is facing a crippling economic crisis that has caused a shocking jump in poverty and food insecurity in recent years. Plummeting economic activity, roiling political instability, and skyrocketing inflation following decades of governmental mismanagement by sectarian elites have turned a scenic country that was once called the “Switzerland of the Middle East” into a land of economic despair for much of the country’s population. (No wonder it’s one of the countries where at least half the population wants to move away.)
These challenging conditions have helped push Lebanon near the bottom of a list of the world’s 137 “happiest” countries, as measured by the 2023 edition of the annual global World Happiness Report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
The survey compares countries based on factors including GDP per capita, quality of social support, healthy life expectancy, and perceptions of individual freedoms. Only Afghanistan, the impoverished Central Asian country ruled by religious fanatics who have broiled under two decades of war, ranks lower than Lebanon. (On the other end of the scale, these are the happiest countries in the world.)
What can be gleaned from the report is that the world’s “happiest countries” tend to be smaller by population and more affluent than their unhappier counterparts. Finland, a capitalist democracy with comfortable social programs, has the same population as Lebanon, but the Finnish has a GDP that’s about 10 times larger, with far greater political and social stability.
Click here to see the 30 least happy countries in the world
Click here to see a detailed methodology
The median population for the world’s 30 unhappiest countries is 20.9 million, roughly equivalent to the population of Mali, Africa’s eighth largest country, while the 30 happiest countries have a median population of 9.2 million, about the population of Israel.
The 30 least happy countries also rank lower in per capita GDP than any of the 30 happiest ones – but looking only at per capita GDP can be misleading. For example, Lebanon’s per capita GDP of about $13,000 is many times higher than that of most of the African countries on this list, but it ranks below any African nations on the list.
For the 30 least happy countries, the median healthy life expectancy (the average number of years a person lives without disabilities, illnesses, or injuries) is 58.3 years, compared to 71.1 years in the 30 happiest countries. The African country of Chad has the lowest healthy life expectancy of all – just 53.1 years.