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Income rank predicts wellbeing worldwide, but social capital can buffer its effects

An individual’s position in the income hierarchy is a stronger predictor of wellbeing than either how much they earn or how large the income gap is between them and others, new research from the University of Leeds, the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick finds.

The study, published in Nature Communications, goes on to show that the strength of the relationship between income rank and wellbeing varies significantly depending on the social and cultural context in which people live—and that strong civic and community life can substantially reduce it.

‘The psychological consequences of where you stand in the income distribution are not inevitable. They depend heavily on the social connectedness around you. Societies that invest in community engagement appear to substantially buffer the status anxiety that income inequality can generate,’ says the study’s first author, Edika Quispe-Torreblanca, associate professor of behavioural decision making at Leeds University Business School.

Using data from more than 90,000 people across 109 countries, the study provides one of the most comprehensive cross-national tests to date of how income shapes life satisfaction and clarifies a long-standing debate about the mechanism behind the income-wellbeing relationship.

Key findings

Drawing on six survey rounds of the Gallup World Poll (2013–2024), the researchers uncovered several striking patterns:

  • Income rank has a stronger relationship with wellbeing than absolute income—and the effect is large.
    People with higher income rank report substantially higher life satisfaction. The estimated gap in life evaluation between people with lower and higher income rank is close to one point on a 0–10 scale. This effect is roughly twice as large as the wellbeing difference between being unemployed and being employed full time, and four times the difference between being single and being separated.
  • Income rank better explains wellbeing than income gaps.
    The researchers tested whether people are affected more by the number of people above them (rank) or by how much more those people earn (relative deprivation). Across 80% of countries, a pure income rank-based model fit best, indicating that people respond to their position in the hierarchy rather than the size of income gaps.  
  • Income rank matters less where social capital is high—and more in materialistic societies.
    People who report strong social support, community engagement, or trust in institutions are less affected by where they sit in the income distribution. At the national level, countries with the highest civic engagement see an 80% smaller income‑rank effect on wellbeing that those with the lowest civic engagement. By contrast, in countries with the most materialistic cultural values—where economic and physical security are prioritized over self‑expression—the link between income rank and wellbeing is more than three times as strong as compared to the least materialist countries.

Why this matters

People at the bottom of the income distribution consistently report worse mental health and lower life satisfaction, but there have been competing explanations as to why this is the case, including material deprivation, social rank and income gaps. If wellbeing suffers because of material deprivation, then growth and redistribution should substantially improve population happiness. If large income gaps are the problem, compressing the top of the distribution should help. But if what matters is income rank, the above measures are unlikely to improve population wellbeing substantially.

This has implications for policymakers: efforts focused solely on raising incomes may have limited impact on wellbeing if people’s sense of status remains unchanged. Conversely, strengthening social capital may insulate individuals from the negative psychological effects of lower income rank.

For the general population, this suggests that the emotional impact of earning less than your neighbours is far less acute when community and belonging provide alternative sources of meaning and status.

‘Improving wellbeing requires thinking beyond income and economic growth alone. While income clearly matters, our findings show that social capital—trust, community engagement and meaningful social participation—plays a crucial role in shaping how people experience their place in society and rate the quality of their lives,’ says second author Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics and behavioural science at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.

‘Policies that strengthen social connection can therefore be just as important as those that raise incomes when it comes to bolstering wellbeing.’

Gordon D.A. Brown, professor of psychology at the University or Warwick, is the last author on the paper.

‘Social status and the relationship between income rank and well-being in 109 nations’ is published in Nature Communications.

Loud and clear: Voice notes could improve workplace communication, research finds

A switch to voice notes can help reduce ambiguity in workplace communications, and in turn reduce negative experiences, according to a newly-published study of workplace wellbeing.

Researchers from the World Wellbeing Movement and the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford presented participants with three common work scenarios between an employee and their line manager. Messages either took the form of a written email or required listening to an identically-worded voice note.

After reading the email or listening to the voice note, participants were then asked for their subjective interpretation of the message: positive, negative, or neutral.

Both communication methods are examples of ‘asynchronous communication’ – communication that does not take place in real time – and are relied upon more than ever in an era of remote and hybrid work as well as increasing cross-border (and cross-time zone) collaboration.

In two of the three scenarios, respondents rated the messages sent via voice notes as significantly less ambiguous than those sent via email, and negative interpretations of the messages were considerably reduced.

The researchers found gender differences when voice notes did not reduce ambiguity. In that case – such as in the final scenario – they actually increased negative interpretation among men.

And regardless of gender, participants who were already reporting higher levels of stress were more likely to interpret any ambiguous email message negatively.

Such findings highlight the complex nature of workplace communication, and the role which clear and effective communication can play in our wellbeing at work.

Sarah Cunningham, Managing Director of the World Wellbeing Movement and lead author of the new paper, said: “Many of us can relate to that moment of opening an email from a manager or colleague, and feeling our stomach drop. Email is efficient, but it also strips away non-verbal cues that help us interpret the sender’s intent. Our study shows that when a message is ambiguous, people are far more likely to jump to negative conclusions.

“A short voice note won’t solve every communication problem, nor should it replace email entirely, but when it reduces ambiguity in short, conversational-style messages like those we tested in this study, it can prevent needless misunderstandings, especially in hybrid and geographically-dispersed teams.

“Further research is needed to understand which other communication modes or interventions might reduce ambiguity even more effectively in asynchronous work, but our findings suggest that reducing ambiguity itself should be a central focus for any people leader seeking to strengthen communication.”

Dr William Fleming, a Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford and second author of the new paper, said: “Voice notes are increasingly common in our digital lives, so these findings demonstrate their value for workplaces too. Reducing ambiguity in workplace communications is something we should all strive for. 

“The variation we find in the different voice notes highlights that we have to think about who is receiving messages, as well as the task at hand.

“For example, we find that men aren’t as receptive to voice notes when the messages do not bring clarity, which could tell us something about men’s comfort with different technologies, or about men-to-men relationships. There’s still more to learn.”

‘Could This Have Been a Voice Note? An Experiment Comparing Voice Notes and Emails’ is published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

World Happiness Report 2026: Complex global picture of social media and happiness

Heavy social media use appears to be contributing to the drop in wellbeing among young people in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, especially among girls, according to findings published today (19 March) in World Happiness Report 2026.

Life evaluations among under 25s in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have dropped dramatically (by almost one point on a 0-10 scale) over the past decade, while the average for the young in the rest of the world has increased, according to Gallup World Poll data.

One international survey1 of 15-year-olds in nearly 50 countries suggests heavy social media use is associated, on average, with a significant drop in wellbeing among the students surveyed, though any effect is highly dependent on the type of social media platform being used, how it is used, as well as demographic factors such as gender and socio-economic status.

Other factors, such as social connections and a sense of belonging, are associated with much bigger changes in how respondents feel about their lives.

Young people who use social media for less than one hour per day report the highest levels of wellbeing – higher than those who do not use social media at all. But adolescents are, by one estimate,1 spending an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media.

The findings are published today ahead of the UN’s International Day of Happiness. The rankings are powered by Gallup World Poll data and other sources, and analysed by an international team of leading experts in wellbeing science.

Contributors include the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, generational differences expert Jean Twenge, and Nudge co-author Cass Sunstein.

The evidence describes a complex global picture at a time when many countries2 are seeking to implement greater legislative protections for under-16s online.

Further key findings published in World Happiness Report 2026 include:

  • Despite similar levels of social media use compared to other countries, the largest drops in wellbeing among young people are observed in English-speaking countries, in particular in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
  • An association between social media and reduced wellbeing is found in multiple sources including surveys, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, and natural experiments …
  • … but there is considerable variation in the interpretation of evidence by professional science organisations, including differences in citation accuracy, contextual detail, acknowledgement of limitations, and conclusion strength.
  • Platforms driven by algorithmically curated content tend to demonstrate a negative association with wellbeing, yet those designed to facilitate social connections show a clear positive association with happiness.
  • Social media creates a standard collective action problem – if social media channels exist, people lose out by not joining, but most people agree they would be better off if they did not exist.

This 14th edition of the World Happiness Report also contains a ranking of the world’s happiest countries. Finland leads the world in happiness for a record ninth year in a row, with Finns reporting an average score of 7.764 (out of 10) when asked to evaluate their lives.

Costa Rica (4th) climbs to its best-ever position, continuing a multi-year rise from a low of 23rd in 2023, while former table-topper Switzerland (10th) re-enters the top 10 after a one-year absence.

Continued upward trends for countries such as Kosovo (16th), Slovenia (18th) and Czechia (20th) underline the convergence of happiness levels between Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe.

The 2026 rankings mark the second year in a row that none of the English-speaking countries, New Zealand (11th), Ireland (13th), Australia (15th), United States (23rd), Canada (25th), and the UK (29th) appear in the top 10, with only half in the top 20. Nations in or near zones of major conflict remain at the foot of the rankings.

Rankings are based on a three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life. Experts then seek to account for the variations across countries and over time using factors such as GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.

These factors help to explain the differences across nations, while the rankings themselves are based solely on the answers people give when asked to rate their own lives.

John F. Helliwell, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia and a founding editor of the World Happiness Report, said: “When it comes to happiness, building what is good in life is more important than finding and fixing what is bad. Both need doing, now more than ever.”

Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup, said: “Every year, Gallup asks people across more than 140 countries to evaluate their lives. Most of the world’s young people are happier today than they were 20 years ago, and that’s a trend that deserves attention.”

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, and an editor of the World Happiness Report, said: “The global evidence makes clear that the links between social media use and our wellbeing heavily depend on what platforms we’re using, who’s using them and how, as well as for how long. Heavy usage is associated with much lower wellbeing, but those deliberately off social media also appear to be missing out on some positive effects.

“Beyond the complexity, it is clear that we should look as much as possible to put the ‘social’ back into social media.”

The World Happiness Report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.

The editorial board consists of John F. Helliwell (University of British Columbia), Richard Layard (London School of Economics and Political Science), Jeffrey D. Sachs (Columbia University), Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (University of Oxford), Lara B. Aknin (Simon Fraser University), and Shun Wang (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University).

Read the report in full at worldhappiness.report, and explore the data at data.worldhappiness.report.

  1. OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2022. This survey does not include life satisfaction data for the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.
  2. https://social-media-age-tracker.onrender.com/

Hope and Wellbeing

Prof Carol Graham (Brookings) and Dr Redzo Mujcic (Warwick) shared findings on the determinants and correlates of hope at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Their collaborative work studies the effects of hope over the life course, and its links with subjective wellbeing.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Menstrual Health and Wellbeing

Rebecca Prah (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) shared findings on the association between menstrual health and various measures of wellbeing at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Her work examines in particular the experiences of adolescent girls in Uganda, and is undertaken alongside Dr Giulia Greco and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

A changing wellbeing scale?

Charlie Harrison (Oxford) shared findings on apparent changes to humanity’s scale of wellbeing at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Together with co-author Dr Alberto Prati (UCL), he proposes a new linear reporting function – the V-LINE – to account for the volatility in happiness over time, and to enable greater comparability between historic and contemporary wellbeing data.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Implications of climate change on wellbeing

Prof Paul Behrens (Oxford), Reapra Senior Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre, shared findings on the implications of climate change on wellbeing at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

His research includes an overview of major integrated environment–society–economy (ESE) models, and how they all fail to account for human wellbeing.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Unemployment and Climate Worries

Sachintha Fernando (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg) presented findings on climate worries at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Her research compares levels of worry about unemployment and climate change, and the capacity for people to care about more than one issue from their ‘finite pool of worry’.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

What should replace GDP?

Annegeke Jansen (Leiden), Reapra Research Associate at the Wellbeing Research Centre, shared findings on alternatives to GDP at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Her research includes a high-level synthesis of multiple Beyond GDP measures, accounting for sustainable development and other important dimensions not captured within Gross Domestic Product figures.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Bitesize research series highlights promising wellbeing interventions in schools

Researchers have highlighted some of the most promising pathways to improving wellbeing in schools in a new series of bitesize research reports.

An interdisciplinary team from the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with the IB, have published a set of resources on five important wellbeing themes for students, teachers, and schools. The topics covered include:

  • Online interventions;
  • Peer relations (bullying);
  • Physical activity;
  • Teacher wellbeing;
  • And a whole school approach to wellbeing.

Researchers examined hundreds of peer-reviewed studies of wellbeing support in schools in order to identify some of the most promising evidence-based interventions.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving wellbeing in schools, the team have highlighted interventions which have been shown to boost levels of wellbeing in specific circumstances. They range from large-scale interventions trialled across countries, to smaller actions rolled out at a more local scale.

Resources are available both in a summary format (in English, French, and Spanish) and, for readers seeking further insight, as a number of detailed literature reviews (in English). An overview poster with key findings from all five reports, suitable for display in the classroom, is also available to download in English, French, and Spanish.

The mini reports serve as companion resources to two Wellbeing Research Centre reports previously published in partnership with the IB: Wellbeing in Education in Childhood and Adolescence (2022), and Wellbeing for Schoolteachers (2024).

Dr Laura Taylor, Deputy Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, said: “Each child and each school environment is unique, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving wellbeing in schools. We highlight how school leaders can use research evidence, alongside crucial elements like staff and student voice activities, in order to support the wellbeing of their school community.”

All five research reports, plus further resources for schools, can be found at wellbeing.hmc.ox.ac.uk/schools.