What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences

What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. Each tradition has a different take, but all agree: The good life is more than just feeling good − it’s about becoming whole.

More recently, researchers have focused on the idea of flourishing, not simply as happiness or success, but as a multidimensional state of well-being that involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment − an idea that traces back to Aristotle’s concept of “eudaimonia” but has been redefined within the well-being science literature.

Flourishing is not just well-being and how you feel on the inside. It’s about your whole life being good, including the people around you and where you live. Things such as your home, your neighborhood, your school or workplace, and your friends all matter.

We are a group of psychological scientists, social scientists and epidemiologists who are all contributors to an international collaboration called the Global Flourishing Study. The goal of the project is simple: to find patterns of human flourishing across cultures.

Do people in some countries thrive more than others? What makes the biggest difference in a person’s well-being? Are there things people can do to improve their own lives? Understanding these trends over time can help shape policies and programs that improve global human flourishing.

What does the flourishing study focus on?

The Global Flourishing Study is a five-year annual survey of over 200,000 participants from 22 countries, using nationally representative sampling to understand health and well-being. Our team includes more than 40 researchers across different disciplines, cultures and institutions.

With help from Gallup Inc., we asked people about their lives, their happiness, their health, their childhood experiences, and how they feel about their financial situation.

The study looks at six dimensions of a flourishing life:

1. Happiness and life satisfaction: how content and fulfilled people feel with their lives.

2. Physical and mental health: how healthy people feel, in both body and mind.

3. Meaning and purpose: whether people feel their lives are significant and moving in a clear direction.

4. Character and virtue: how people act to promote good, even in tough situations.

5. Close social relationships: how satisfied people are with their friendships and family ties.

6. Financial and material stability: whether people feel secure about their basic needs, including food, housing and money.

We tried to quantify how participants are doing on each of these dimensions using a scale from 0 to 10. In addition to using the Secure Flourish measure from Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, we included additional questions to probe other factors that influence how much someone is flourishing.

For example, we assessed well-being through questions about optimism, peace and balance in life. We measured health by asking about pain, depression and exercise. We measured relationships through questions about trust, loneliness and support.

Who is flourishing and why?

Our first wave of results reveals that some countries and groups of people are doing better than others.

We were surprised that in many countries young people are not doing as well as older adults. Earlier studies had suggested well-being follows a U-shape over the course of a lifespan, with the lowest point in middle age. Our new results imply that younger adults today face growing mental health challenges, financial insecurity and a loss of meaning that are disrupting the traditional U-shaped curve of well-being.

Married people usually reported more support, better relationships and more meaning in life.

People who were working – either for themselves or someone else – also tended to feel more secure and happy than people who were seeking jobs.

People who go to religious services once a week or more typically reported higher scores in all areas of flourishing – particularly happiness, meaning and relationships. This finding was true in almost every country, even very secular ones such as Sweden.

It seems that religious communities offer what psychologists of religion call the four B’s: belonging, in the form of social support; bonding, in the form of spiritual connection; behaving, in the cultivation of character and virtue through the practices and norms taught within religious communities; and believing, in the form of embracing hope, forgiveness and shared spiritual convictions.

But some people who attend religious services also report more pain or suffering. This correlation may be because religious communities often provide support during hard times, and frequent attendees may be more attentive to or more likely to experience pain, grief or illness.

Your early years shape how you do later in life. But even if life started off as challenging, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Some people who had difficult childhoods, having experienced abuse or poverty, still found meaning and purpose later as adults. In some countries, including the U.S. and Argentina, hardship in childhood seemed to build resilience and purpose in adulthood.

Globally, men and women report similar levels of flourishing. But in some countries there are big differences. For example, women in Japan report higher scores than men, while in Brazil, men report doing better than women.

Where are people flourishing most?

Some countries are doing better than others when it comes to flourishing.

Indonesia is thriving. People there scored high in many areas, including meaning, purpose, relationships and character. Indonesia is one of the highest-scoring countries in most of the indicators in the whole study.

Mexico and the Philippines also show strong results. Even though these countries have less money than some others, people report strong family ties, spiritual lives and community support.

Japan and Turkey report lower scores. Japan has a strong economy, but people there report lower happiness and weaker social connections. Long work hours and stress may be part of the reason. In Turkey, political and financial challenges may be hurting people’s sense of trust and security.

One surprising result is that richer countries, including the United States and Sweden, are not flourishing as well as some others. They do well on financial stability but score lower in meaning and relationships. Having more money doesn’t always mean people are doing better in life.

In fact, countries with higher income often report lower levels of meaning and purpose. Meanwhile, countries with higher fertility rates often report more meaning in life. These findings show that there can be a trade-off. Economic progress might improve some things but weaken others.

The big picture

The Global Flourishing Study is helping us see that people all over the world want many of the same basic things: to be happy, healthy, connected and safe. But different countries reach those goals in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to flourishing. What it means to flourish can look different from place to place and from one person to another.

One challenge with the Global Flourishing Study is that it uses the same set of questions in all 22 countries. This method, known as an etic approach, helps us compare results across cultures. But it can miss the nuance and local meanings of flourishing. What brings happiness or purpose in one country or context might not mean the same thing in another.

We consider this study to be a starting point. It opens the door for more emic studies – research that uses questions and ideas that fit the values, language and everyday life of specific cultures and societies. Researchers can build on this study’s findings to expand how we understand and measure flourishing around the world.

Tyler J. VanderWeele reports consulting fees from Gloo Inc., along with shared revenue received by Harvard University in its license agreement with Gloo according to the University IP policy.

Byron R. Johnson and Victor Counted do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.