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Exploring associations of three evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril’s ladder, life satisfaction, happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries
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  • Published: 10 February 2026

Exploring associations of three evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril’s ladder, life satisfaction, happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries

  • Tim Lomas1,2 na1,
  • Hayami K. Koga2 na1,
  • R. Noah Padgett1,2,
  • James O. Pawelski4,
  • Eric S. Kim5,
  • Christos A. Makridis6,7,
  • Craig Gundersen8,
  • Matt Bradshaw9,
  • Noémie Le Pertel2,
  • Koichiro Shiba10,
  • Chris Felton2,9,
  • John F. Helliwell5,
  • Byron R. Johnson9 &
  • …
  • Tyler J. VanderWeele1,2,3 

Scientific Reports , Article number:  (2026) Cite this article

We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Subjects

  • Health care
  • Psychology

Abstract

Despite a vast literature on subjective wellbeing (SWB), issues remain, including (a) debates around which concepts best represent it, (b) a disjointed understanding of relevant factors, and (c) limited appreciation of cross-national variation regarding (a) and (b). We address these points using data from the Global Flourishing Study on three constructs pertaining to evaluative SWB specifically (Cantril’s ladder, life satisfaction, and, perhaps more ambiguously, happiness), examining associations with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 202,898 participants from 22 countries. Key findings include, for (a) life satisfaction being the best performing construct (in correlations with overall flourishing), (b) all factors being significantly associated with all constructs (with the largest variation observed for employment status among demographic factors and self-reported health among childhood factors), and (c) patterns varying substantively across countries (suggesting the general trends are not universal but differ according to local socio-cultural dynamics). The findings advance the methodological, socio-demographic, and cross-national understanding of evaluative SWB.

Data availability

Data that support the findings of this article are openly available on the Open Science Framework (Wave 1 non-sensitive Global data: https://osf.io/sm4cd/), and are available from February 2024 - March 2026 via preregistration and publicly from then onwards. Please see https://www.cos.io/gfs-access-data for more information about data access.

Code availability

Code in multiple software is openly available in an online repository49 for the demographic and childhood analyses (https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/vbype).

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Author notes

  1. Tim Lomas and Hayami K. Koga contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Tim Lomas, R. Noah Padgett & Tyler J. VanderWeele

  2. Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tim Lomas, Hayami K. Koga, R. Noah Padgett, Noémie Le Pertel, Chris Felton & Tyler J. VanderWeele

  3. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Tyler J. VanderWeele

  4. Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    James O. Pawelski

  5. Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Eric S. Kim & John F. Helliwell

  6. W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Christos A. Makridis

  7. Institute for the Future, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Christos A. Makridis

  8. Department of Economics, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

    Craig Gundersen

  9. Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

    Matt Bradshaw, Chris Felton & Byron R. Johnson

  10. Department of Epidemiology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Koichiro Shiba

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Contributions

T.J.V. and B.R.J. led the overall study of which this paper reports a subset of results. H.K. and T.L. conceptualized, designed, and planned the paper, in collaboration with other authors. R.N.P. led the analyses and prepared the tables and figures. T.L. and H.K. wrote the first draft of the manuscript and subsequent revisions. All authors provided feedback of various drafts of the manuscript, helped edit and refine the text, and reviewed the final version.

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Correspondence to Tim Lomas.

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Tyler J. VanderWeele reports partial ownership and licensing fees from Gloo, Inc. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare.

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Lomas, T., Koga, H.K., Padgett, R.N. et al. Exploring associations of three evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril’s ladder, life satisfaction, happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35777-y

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  • Received: 10 April 2025

  • Accepted: 08 January 2026

  • Published: 10 February 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35777-y

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Keywords

  • Life evaluation
  • Life satisfaction
  • Happiness
  • Subjective wellbeing
  • Cross-cultural
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