These are the countries with the highest levels of well-being
Panama emerges as the country with the highest level of well-being in the 2014 Country Well-Being Rankings report, which surveys citizens in 145 countries and territories on five elements of well-being – purpose, social, financial, community and physical – and ranks countries based on the proportion of the population who say they are “thriving” in three or more of them.
Panama has 53% of people believing they are thriving in at least three of the categories. Other countries in the Americas dominate the top of the rankings, with Costa Rica and Puerto Rico in second and third places respectively.
Afghanistan ranks last with 0% of people thriving in three elements of well-being, followed by Bhutan and Cameroon.
The 10 countries with the highest levels of well-being
- Panama 53.0%
- Costa Rica 47.6%
- Puerto Rico 45.8%
- Switzerland 39.4%
- Belize 38.9%
- Chile 38.7%
- Denmark 37.0%
- Guatemala 36.3%
- Austria 35.6%
- Mexico 35.6%
The 10 countries with the lowest levels of well-being
- Ghana 5.6%
- Haiti 5.3%
- Benin 4.8%
- Ivory Coast 4.5%
- DR Congo 4.1%
- Tunisia 4.0%
- Togo 3.9%
- Cameroon 3.1%
- Bhutan 3.0%
- Afghanistan 0.0%
Percentages refer to the proportion of people believing that they are thriving in three or more elements of well-being.
To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Author: Paul Muggeridge is Head of Content at Formative Content.
Image: Attendants stand in a line to pose for a picture in Beijing. REUTERS/Jason Lee
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
Future of Global Health and Healthcare
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.