Flourishing in Sweden: Great overall—but not for all
Bittár, N., Nilsson, A. H., Dahlen, M., Nathanson, M., Kajonius, P. J., Kjell, O., Lomas, T., Padgett, R. N., Case, B., Chen, Y., Cowden, R. G., Johnson, B. R., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2025). Flourishing in Sweden: Great overall—but not for all. International Journal of Wellbeing, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v15i3.6001
@article{bittar2025flourishing,
title = {{Flourishing in Sweden: Great overall—but not for all}},
author = {Nora Bittár and August Håkan Nilsson and Micael Dahlen and Mirjam Nathanson and Petri J. Kajonius and Oscar Kjell and Tim Lomas and R. Noah Padgett and Brendan Case and Ying Chen and Richard G. Cowden and Byron R. Johnson and Tyler J. VanderWeele},
year = {2025},
journal = {International Journal of Wellbeing},
doi = {10.5502/ijw.v15i3.6001},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v15i3.6001}
}
Abstract
Flourishing across seven domains was analysed in Sweden using data from 15,068 adults in the Global Flourishing Study. Swedish respondents, on average, reported high levels of life evaluation and financial wellbeing, and low psychological distress, but there were clear disparities between demographic subgroups. Older adults reported substantially higher wellbeing than younger adults, while women and foreign-born residents reported somewhat lower flourishing. A multidimensional approach reveals wellbeing inequalities between sociodemographic groups, even in a country routinely ranked among the world's happiest.
