The Dominican Republic ranked 64th out of 147 countries in the World Happiness Report 2026, earning an average score of 6.093 out of 10 based on data collected between 2023 and 2025 through the Gallup World Poll.
Published annually, the report measures how people evaluate their overall quality of life using a scale from 0 to 10. To provide a more stable picture of well-being, researchers average survey responses over a three-year period rather than relying on a single year’s results.
Steady Improvement in Perceived Well-Being
The latest edition indicates that the Dominican Republic has continued to improve its position in recent years, placing it among the countries that have recorded notable gains in perceived well-being.
Beyond the rankings themselves, the report examines the factors that help explain differences in happiness across countries. These include GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.
Social Media Use Shows No Measurable Impact
The 2026 report also explored whether the use of social media platforms influences life satisfaction in the Dominican Republic. The analysis relied on Latinobarometer surveys conducted between 2023 and 2024 involving 1,891 Dominicans aged 15 and older.
Researchers examined the use of platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok. After accounting for multiple social and economic variables, they found no statistically significant relationship between using a greater number of social media platforms and reporting higher or lower levels of life satisfaction.
Broader Factors Shape Quality of Life
To better understand the relationship between digital behavior and personal well-being, the study controlled for variables such as interpersonal trust, confidence in government, religiosity, social class, and perceptions of the country’s economic conditions.
The findings suggest that broader social, institutional, and economic factors continue to play a more important role in shaping how people evaluate their quality of life than the number of social media platforms they use.
The World Happiness Report is published each year to compare well-being across countries while examining how economic performance, social conditions, and public institutions influence people’s perceptions of their lives. The Dominican Republic’s latest ranking points to a continued upward trend in overall life satisfaction according to the report’s methodology.