Expert: World Happiness Report 2024

The World Happiness Report reflects a worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness. The report’s release aligns with the United Nation’s International Day of Happiness, March 20, 2024. (World Happiness Report) 

Christopher Barrington-Leigh, Associate Professor, Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy 

 “The lives of Canadians and people around the world are changing faster than ever, and the World Happiness Report gauges the quality of those lives according to personal assessments. This year, the report focuses on assessing the quality of life for people at different ages and how it is changing. Canada remains a world leader in this field: Two of the report's editors are Canadian, and the federal government has developed a Quality of Life Framework for policy making, which puts overall subjective well-being at the centre.” 

Christopher Barrington-Leigh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy and the Bieler School of Environment. His research makes use of subjective well-being reports to address the relative importance of social and community-oriented aspects of life as compared with material consumption. He recently co-authored the study, “High life satisfaction reported among small-scale societies with low incomes,” published in PNAS. 

chris.barrington-leigh [at] mcgill.ca (English, French)