Population Well-Being Lab

happiness

Felix Cheung and Yeeun Archer Lee Co-Authored Chapter in 2025 World Happiness Report

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We’re proud to share that our PI, Dr. Felix Cheung, and former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Yeeun Archer Lee (now Assistant Professor at Trinity Western University) co-authored a chapter in the 2025 World Happiness Report, released on the UN’s International Day of Happiness. Their chapter, titled “Caring and Sharing: Global Analysis of Happiness and Kindness,” highlights the powerful role of benevolence—trusting and helping others—in fostering both individual and societal well-being. Their work has garnered significant media attention, with features in outlets such as CNN Health, CBC News, and UofT Arts & Science News, which praised the findings for offering hope in a time of global pessimism. The research reveals that acts of kindness are more common than we think—and more important to our happiness than we realize. Congratulations to Felix and Yeeun on this meaningful and widely reported contribution!

Media Coverage

Click the images or titles below to read more about the coverage of Felix and Yeeun’s work in the World Happiness Report:

📰 UofT Arts & Science News

“Trusting your neighbour is key to happiness, according to World Happiness Report“

📰 CNN Health

“Kindness will make you happier than a higher salary, report shows“

📰 CBC News

“Canada drops to 18th in 2025 World Happiness Report rank, among the ‘largest losers’“

Also featured in: The Pinnacle Gazette, 9News, CityNews, and other national and international outlets.

Canadian Happiness Report 2024

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In the first series of Canadian Happiness Reports published in 2022, we drew attention to the downward trend of Canadians’ evaluations of their quality of life since the early-2010s and the well-being disparities that exist in Canada. Since then, there has been a growing concern about declining standards of living in Canada (e.g., inflation, home prices have soared, overburdened health services, and a mental health crisis especially among young people). While we as a country look to address these and other disparate issues with limited resources, we believe it is especially important to understand how Canadians’ well-being is changing and who in Canada is most and least satisfied with their lives. Therefore, in this report, we investigate trends in Canadian well-being over time and across provinces, identify at-risk groups in Canada experiencing low well-being, and Understand trends in Canadian youth well-being. We also examine the limitations of studying and measuring well-being in Canada.

OSF link: https://osf.io/rdzhy/

For optimal viewing, please download the full report from OSF, as some formatting may not display correctly in the embedded viewer on this site.

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We Are Hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow!

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The Population Well-being Lab at the University of Toronto is hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow to join us to study population-level determinants and consequences of happiness! We are especially interested in increasing our research capacity to investigate the well-being impact of war and conflict given recent events. The postdoctoral fellow will gain access to large existing datasets, such as the Gallup World Poll (over 2 million participants surveyed across over 160 countries).

Our Lab has a ‘glocal’ focus. At the local level, our Lab recently released a Canadian Happiness Report, documenting a worrying decline in happiness in Canada since the late 2000s. At the global level, we are currently working on multiple projects related to the well-being impact of war and conflict in collaboration with Syrian and Ukrainian researchers. The long-term goal of these efforts is to develop evidence-based interventions and policies to improve well-being at scale. To study a wide range of social issues, our Lab highly values the diversity of our team members.

For more information about the lab, please visit: 

https://cheung.artsci.utoronto.ca/

For the full job ad, please see: 

https://www.psych.utoronto.ca/sites/www.psych.utoronto.ca/files/Population%20Well-Being%20Postodoctoral%20Fellowship.pdf

For more information about the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program, please visit: 

https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/research-supports-services/find-funding#banting-postdoctoral-fellowship-program

https://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/en/home-accueil.html

Canadian Happiness Report (May 2022)

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The Canadian Happiness Report series is dedicated to communicating empirical findings on Canadians’ wellbeing to the public. Our goal is to aid in developing a rigorous and effective QoL framework for Canada using the latest data and methods. In the first report, we found that Canadian well-being has been on a downturn since the late 2000s. In this report, we document well-being inequalities across demographics and capture the current variation in some key indicators that make up the Department of Finance’s QoL framework. Our next report will feature an in-depth review of community and population-scale QoL interventions which could be used in Canada to reverse the decline in well-being.

OSF link: https://osf.io/d837y

For optimal viewing, please download the full report from OSF, as some formatting may not display correctly in the embedded viewer on this site.

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If you would like to receive newsletters from our lab where we will present our latest findings along with other engaging content sign up here: http://eepurl.com/h7lX4r

Toronto Star interview on Canadian Happiness Report

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“So Canada placing 15th in the World Happiness Report is good, right? Not so fast, researchers say”

https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/03/28/so-canada-placing-15th-in-the-world-happiness-report-is-good-right-no-so-fast-researchers-say.html

Our Canadian Happiness Report:

https://cheung.artsci.utoronto.ca/canadian-happiness-report-march-2022/

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https://forms.office.com/r/N5S5YtV9Ab