The state of our unhappiness

The World Happiness Report 2025 ranked Bangladesh at 134 out of 147 countries in overall happiness, meaning that there are only 13 countries in the world that are less happy than we are. 

20 March is the International Day of Happiness, according to the United Nations. Each year, on that day, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN) teams up with Gallup to produce the World Happiness Report, which ranks over 140 countries in the world based on the happiness levels of their citizens.

According to Gallup, there are six major indicators for measuring happiness: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. 

Out of these six major indicators, we ranked lowest on social support. The question that was asked was whether our citizens feel like they would receive emotional, financial, or other types of support from their friends, family, neighbours, etc if they faced a crisis. We ranked 142 out of 147 here, indicating that the population of the country does not believe they will receive social support if problems arise.

Additionally, Gallup also measures countries' positive and negative emotions based on a few specific questions. The World Emotions Report accompanies the World Happiness Report, breaking down specific negative and positive emotion rankings of all countries in the world, although the two reports are not released simultaneously.

If we look at the World Happiness Report 2025 and the World Emotions Report 2024 (the most recent one available), it paints a rather bleak picture for Bangladesh. Not only have our happiness rankings been falling for over three years now, our experience of positive emotions is some of the lowest in the world, while our experience of negative emotions is quite high, according to the data. 

Bangladesh ranked 137 out of 147 in overall positive emotions, putting us in the top ten countries that have experienced the lowest positive emotions in the last year. Positive emotions are judged on a few specific metrics: enjoyment, smiles, being well-rested, learning interesting things, and respect. What stands out here is that we ranked dead last at 147 out of 147 in the category for learning interesting things. Only 17% of the Bangladeshi population have claimed that they learnt an interesting thing on a previous day, tying us with Afghanistan at the bottom of the rankings.

Then comes the ranking for negative emotions. Here, we ranked 115 out of 147, not faring much better. The categories for judging negative emotions are: sadness, anger, worry, stress and pain. While none of the rankings here were good, we ranked especially high in sadness and worry, making Bangladesh the sixth most sad and worried nation in the world.

However, not all the rankings were bad. In perhaps the most surprising ranking, we placed 12th in freedom, which is one of the six main indicators of a happy nation. We were also ranked 15 in terms of offering help to strangers.

So, what exactly is going on here? Why are we so unhappy as a nation? Why do we feel so much sadness and worry? Furthermore, how can we rank so low on social support but so high on helping strangers? And how can we be ranked so highly on freedom to make life choices?

Taking the report with a grain of salt

According to Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed, a psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health, the tools and methods used to conduct the survey have weaknesses. Universal measurement scales like these are not very reliable because they do not properly account for cultural factors. One of the big problems with the survey is that they ask citizens to self-report their emotions. Happiness levels can be influenced by cultural, social, and political conditions, but beyond that, how people understand these concepts also plays a big role in how they answer these questions. 

If someone misunderstands a question or interprets it through their own unique cultural lens, it can lead to unreliable answers. This can perhaps best be illustrated by the fact that Bangladesh ranked 142 out of 147 in social support. Dr Helal explains that there have been many local studies on the level of social support in Bangladesh, and it is always very high.

If someone misunderstands a question or interprets it through their own unique cultural lens, it can lead to unreliable answers. This can perhaps best be illustrated by the fact that Bangladesh ranked 142 out of 147 in social support. Dr Helal explains that there have been many local studies on the level of social support in Bangladesh, and it is always very high. He points to research that showed that Bangladesh had far fewer deaths due to Covid-19 than many Western countries because of our high levels of social solidarity.

Syed Tanveer Rahman, associate professor at the psychology department at the University of Dhaka, agrees with this viewpoint. He states, "There are two elements here, the survey collector and the respondent. Due to cultural factors, the respondent may interpret a question quite differently. Perhaps the Bangladeshi population did not interpret the question in the way Gallup intended."

This idea is given credence by the fact that even though the country ranked so low on social support, it ranked 15 out of 147 in 'helping a stranger,' making the two rankings contradictory. Furthermore, the country's ranking of 12 out of 147 in freedom is also suspect for similar reasons.

Dr Shahinoor Rahman, professor of psychology at the University of Chattogram, further explains how the understanding of the respondent can influence the answer.  

"The respondents are indicating their answers based on their own standards. This is a problem because Bangladeshis as a people are not aware of the concept of happiness in the same ways. Our indicator will be low because when they ask us, we will not answer properly due to not thinking of happiness much."

However, while the surveys may have some faults, they do not need to be ignored. There is still a lot of truth to the overall idea that people in Bangladesh are very unhappy, lack positive emotions, and experience greater negative emotions.

The mental health landscape

Dr Helal states, "It is true that people are not very happy here. They are very depressed, and they are not being treated properly."

Dr Helal believes that Bangladesh being a heavily faith-based society can partially explain why we are low in the rankings compared to a knowledge-based society like Finland, which is ranked number 1. He clarifies that faith-based thinking does not just imply religion; it implies that we make decisions based on beliefs, opinions, and faith rather than knowledge and understanding. 

"Our faith based thinking makes us very judgemental on all levels. From our parenting to how we treat people in society and how much space we allow others to develop as people."

A major reason that can explain our current happiness ranking is that mental health care is highly unequal in Bangladesh. Furthermore, there is a huge gap between mental health access in the major cities and more rural areas. 

"There are mental health facilities and therapists in large urban areas but almost nothing in rural areas," says Dr Helal. "Only affluent people can get access to mental health. Unless we can bring mental health awareness to the masses, nothing will change," he continues.

Dr Shahinoor further explains that it is mostly people in Dhaka who are getting the most amount of mental health services, whereas, even in other urban areas like Chittagong, mental health services are almost nonexistent.

He says this has led to a population that is completely unaware of mental health, "From top to bottom, no one actually understands the concept properly. People in the upper and middle classes understand somewhat, but the number is very low." 

Furthermore, the stigma attached to mental health is still quite large in Bangladesh, causing further obstacles to improving our happiness. According to Dr Shahinoor, most people in this country conflate mental health with mental illness due to stigma and lack of knowledge. "For those who understand the concept of mental illness, if they feel sad for a few days, they think they are suffering from mental illness. This leads them to not seek help due to fears of judgement."

Dr Shahinoor believes that one way to address these concerns is to rethink the model of mental health that we use. There are two distinct models of mental health: the mental illness model and the happiness or well-being model. If people are taught about the mental illness model, which centres disease or illness, this can cause increased worries and anxieties and lead people to focus on how ill they are. However, if the discourse is shifted to mental wellbeing, this can help break stigmas and remove the culture of silence that stops people from seeking help.

Dr Shahinoor further states that both positive and negative emotions are a part of life, and we need to teach our population life skills that help them deal with their emotions in a healthy manner.

While things look bleak for our happiness at the moment, Tanveer says there is hope for improvement in happiness in future reports: "Bangladesh is going through a transition period, and we have been through traumatic incidents in the past year. But there are a number of programs that we have started that will bear fruit in the coming years." 

According to Tanveer, Unesco is conducting a program where they are providing intervention for people who are suffering from social-emotional problems. There are also programs being designed to train teachers on mental health to spread to schools. A few more programs are currently awaiting funding from the government.

Dr Shahinoor states how we can spread mental health awareness to the masses to help increase our happiness, "For the educated population, the best way to change things is to introduce mental health classes to students in schools. If we can create a student population that is equipped to deal with their negative and positive emotions in a healthy way, we can influence generations." 

He goes on to state that it is also pertinent to address the non-education population through community engagement: "We can train imams in mosques to address people's mental health. This will greatly aid in breaking the stigma."