Global Flourishing Study Maps the Topography of the Human Experience

Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-709-5959
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 30, 2025) – The Global Flourishing Study (GFS), a multi-year collaborative research study carried out by Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, Gallup and the Center for Open Science, revealed its First Wave findings on human flourishing, results from one of the most comprehensive studies of human well-being ever undertaken. The findings paint a picture of flourishing today which is defined as “living in a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good.”

The groundbreaking initiative represents the most comprehensive undertaking to uncover the roots of human flourishing: a five-year, longitudinal study of over 200,000 individuals in more than 20 countries, speaking 45 languages. 

Principal investigators Byron R. Johnson. Ph.D., director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, and Tyler J. VanderWeele, director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, co-lead the project.

“In some ways, I see this as Baylor’s gift to the world, to look at human flourishing,” Johnson said. “This is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a topic that’s overwhelmingly important. If we can help figure out what makes people flourish or what hinders them from flourishing, maybe we will become more thoughtful as a society. There’s no better place than Baylor to lead a project that will can touch so many different aspects of our lives.”

"If we can help figure out what makes people flourish or what hinders them from flourishing, maybe we will become more thoughtful as a society." - Byron R. Johnson, Ph.D.

GFS measures global human flourishing across six domains including happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability. 

“The Global Flourishing Study expands our knowledge of the distribution and determinants of well-being, effectively creating an epidemiology of flourishing and thus providing foundational knowledge for the promotion of flourishing,” said VanderWeele. “We believe understanding human flourishing can fundamentally change the way we live and how we interact.”

The study seeks to not only understand and map flourishing, but to address a surge of interest in the questions around flourishing – not only among social scientists but increasingly among policymakers and business leaders. 

“The Global Flourishing Study represents a significant contribution from Baylor University to the world, and its impact on our understanding of what it means for humans to flourish is only beginning to be felt,” Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., said. “We are thrilled to see insights from the first wave of global data shared with the scholarly community, policymakers and all who share an interest in the wellbeing of our neighbors around the world. We’re grateful for the leadership of Dr. Byron Johnson and the dozens of researchers at Baylor and partner institutions who have taken mountains of data and distilled it into information for scholars and media outlets to uncover global trends in human flourishing.”

Insights from the First Wave of data were officially unveiled this morning at Exploring the Science and Meaning of Human Flourishing, a program at Gallup Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Key Insights

Nearly 50 GFS researchers spent the last year gleaning insights from the first wave of data, and among the many findings, three initial key insights emerged:

• Global Differences in Flourishing: The study saw that many middle-income developing countries were doing better in terms of meaning, purpose and relationships than the richer developed world. Countries like Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines fared particularly well while other nearby countries like Japan, Turkey and the United Kingdom did not.
• Younger Generations Lagging: The study revealed that younger people appear to not be doing as well as older people when compared to the generations that came before them. Flourishing tends to increase with age in many countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.  And in many the youngest age group (18- to 24-year-olds) reported the lowest.
• Spirituality is a Common Contributor: Across almost all countries, religious service attendance appears to be an important element related to flourishing, with especially strong associations even in the most secular societies.

Open Science

To ensure that this work goes beyond the Harvard-Baylor teams, the data is also freely available to the public through the Center for Open Science, and the principal investigators invite open dialogue around flourishing and seek out active contributions from the community and from research satellite locations around the globe. In addition, beyond the intensive gathering of this First Wave data, GFS will also follow the same people as they go about their lives over the course of five years.

“By inviting dialogue and contributions, this initiative becomes a working lab focused on flourishing,” Johnson said. “With so much tension and uncertainty across the globe, flourishing is something we can all come together on. By focusing on this collectively, we can work towards ways to improve economic development, reduce conflicts and help communities and countries rediscover their true meaning and purpose.”

"By focusing on this collectively, we can work towards ways to improve economic development, reduce conflicts and help communities and countries rediscover their true meaning and purpose." - Byron R. Johnson, Ph.D.

The release of these findings culminates more than four years of collaboration and exploration among more than 40 leading experts surveying 200,000 research participants across 20+ geographically and culturally diverse populations from across the globe. These experts span the disciplines of sociology, psychology, epidemiology, economics, education, statistics, history, philosophy and theology. This $43.4 million initiative is being supported by a consortium of funders, including the John Templeton Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Paul Foster Family Foundation, the Wellbeing for Planet Earth Foundation, Well Being Trust and the David & Carol Myers Foundation. 

For more information on GFS and its initial findings go to www.globalflourishingstudy.com.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

ABOUT THE BAYLOR INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES OF RELIGION

Launched in August 2004, the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) initiates, supports and conducts research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum: history, psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, theology and religious studies. The institute’s mandate extends to all religions, everywhere, and throughout history, and embraces the study of religious effects on prosocial behavior, family life, population health, economic development and social conflict. For more information, visit the Baylor ISR website.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL FLOURISHING STUDY

The Global Flourishing Study is a longitudinal panel study of over 200,000 participants in 22 countries, spanning all six populated continents, with nationally representative sampling, and intended annual longitudinal panel data collection for five years. The study is being carried out in collaboration between scholars at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard and Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and in partnership with Gallup and the Center for Open Science, with data collection coordinated by Gallup.

The survey - which includes a rich set of questions on well-being along with demographic, social, economic, political, religious, personality, childhood, community, health and character-based questions – panels individuals from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China (Hong Kong), Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries were selected in consultation with Gallup to maximize coverage of the world’s population, to ensure geographic, cultural and religious diversity, and in consideration of existing data collection infrastructure and feasibility.