Category: Data

The World Happiness Report 2025 is out and Kuwait has dropped out of the top 20 list. Last year, Kuwait was the 13th happiest country in the world, but this year, it has dropped to 30th. I think the lowest Kuwait ever ranked was 48, while 30-34 is where it usually ranks. Last year was the highest spot Kuwait ever hit but sadly it didn’t last long.

The results are based on surveys from people in more than 140 countries who are answering questions regarding their overall satisfaction with their lives. The study also takes into account six key variables including GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

The top three happiest countries in the world haven’t changed since last year. It’s still:

1- Finland
2- Denmark
3- Iceland

The happiest country in the Gulf is UAE coming in 21st place. For the full report, click here.

According to an article on Arab Times, Kuwait Airport is ranked the 7th worst airport in the world according to Skytrax, the airline and airport review and ranking site. I tried to figure out how Arab Times got their top 10 list but I couldn’t figure it out, on another list also by Skytrax, Kuwait is ranked the 6th worst airport.

6th or 7th, it doesn’t matter really. Previously another airport and airline review site, AirHelp, had ranked Kuwait Airport the 2nd worst in the world, but suspiciously after that ranking, Kuwait stopped appearing on their list.

I’m traveling tomorrow with British Airways from Terminal 1 and not really looking forward to it, although truthfully, since Terminal 4 and the Jazeera terminal opened, Terminal 1 has been pretty chill. It’s just visually an ugly terminal with nothing to do once inside.

While on the subject of airports, I remember reading online somewhere that the fee for long term parking at Terminal 1 got increased from 2KD per day to 5KD per day, can anyone confirm that?

Forbes Middle East revealed their annual list of Middle East’s 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen and 7 Kuwaiti businesswomen made the list for 2024. Even more impressive is that 3 of the top 5 most powerful businesswomen are from Kuwait.

Here are the most powerful Kuwaiti women and their position in the top 100:

2. Shaikha Khaled Al Bahar
National Bank of Kuwait Group (NBK Group)

3. Wadha Ahmad Al-Khateeb
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC)

5. Dana Nasser Al Sabah
Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) – KIPCO

18. Henadi Al-Saleh
Agility

28. Nadia Bader Al-Hajji
Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC)

67. Donna Sultan
KEO International Consultants

86. Nadia Akil
United Projects for Aviation Services Company (UPAC)

Analysts at the website Picodi calculated how many years of work are required to make 1 million dollars in different countries while earning an average wage. According to their calculations, it would take you over 41 years to make $1M living in Kuwait. The fastest country to earn a million is Switzerland (14 years) while the slowest is Pakistan (621 years).

Switzerland 14 years
United States 20 years
Qatar 21 years
UAE 24 years
Oman 38 years
Kuwait 41 years
Saudi Arabia 42 years
India 148 years
Egypt 603 years
Pakistan 621 years

They got their average salary data for this analysis from the crowd-sourced database Numbeo. I downloaded the data to see what the average salary for Kuwait was and it turned out to be 622KD. So if you earn more than that, you’re on your way to hitting the $1M mark even quicker.

Click here for the full study.

The financial services company Remitly analyzed and published a list of the most popular dream jobs around the world.

Remitluy used Google search data to establish the annual search volume in each country for ‘how to be a [job]’. The most searched for job was then used as the top career for the specific country.

According to their results, the top dream job in Kuwait is being an influencer. Everyone else in the GCC wants to be a poet for some reason while the most popular dream job overall in the world was a pilot. Click here to view the full map or visit the source.

Here’s a great list for Kuwait to rank high on, the 20 countries where people live the longest. According to a recent report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Kuwait has the 11th highest life expectancy in the world with an average life expectancy of 70.7 years. Kuwait has the highest life expectancy in the GCC and the second-highest in the Middle East with only Israel ahead in 8th place. Singapore tops the list with the highest expectancy of 74.2 years. Check out the full top 20 list here.

Thanks Bader