The Gallup Podcast GALLUP®

The top 10 happiest countries in the world are largely the same as the top 10 recorded before the pandemic, but key shifts are taking place -- including Germany and the U.S. dropping out of the top 20 for the first time. The latest World Happiness Report sheds new light on how people’s life satisfaction ratings vary substantially between the world’s young and old. John Helliwell, professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, and Lara Aknin, professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University, join the podcast to discuss key changes in India, a growing global inequality of happiness and how wellbeing can serve as a protective factor against dementia.

How do residents of member states of NATO view the alliance’s leadership? And what factors drive these views? Zacc Ritter, project director and advanced data analyst at Gallup, joins the podcast to discuss soft power, the crossroads NATO finds itself at, and a new analysis of attitudes of NATO member states.

The Gallup Center on Black Voices has collected more than 130,000 survey responses since it launched in 2020. Camille Lloyd, director of the Center, joins the podcast to discuss its recent findings across the Center’s six pillars of research. With the Black History Month 2024 theme of “African Americans and the Arts,” how many Americans are knowledgeable about Black cultural influences?

What makes for a flourishing life? A five-year longitudinal data collection and research collaboration measures global human flourishing across six areas: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and material and financial stability. Dr. Tyler J. VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University and director of the Human Flourishing Program, and Byron Johnson, director of the Institute for Studies of Religion and distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University, join the podcast to discuss The Global Flourishing Study.

Historically, incumbent presidents with approval ratings of 50% or higher have won reelection, and presidents with approval ratings much lower than 50% have lost. What does this mean for Joe Biden -- and how does his rating stack up against previous incumbents who have run for reelection? Lydia Saad, Gallup’s director of U.S. social research, joins the podcast to discuss Americans’ views on whether Biden’s deserves to be reelected, as well as the favorable ratings of Biden and Donald Trump. She also offers a sneak peek at upcoming data on the reasons Americans give behind their approval and disapproval of Biden’s performance.

The challenges posed by climate change will fall disproportionately on the world’s youth -- but how well do they understand the challenges they face? What are their perspectives on climate change, and where are they getting their information? Moira Herbst, special projects editor at UNICEF Innocenti, and Nahjae Nunes, a UNICEF Youth Foresight Fellow, join the podcast to discuss the latest findings from the UNICEF-Gallup Changing Childhood survey.