A Study Of 93 Countries Found That The Happiest Ones Have More Cats
A research team led by Javier Borráz-León of the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation in Mexico City analyzed data from 93 countries and found that nations with more cats per person tended to score higher on national happiness measures, while countries with greater exposure to Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite most associated with cats, tended to score lower. The study, published in PLOS One, compared national happiness averages from 2022 through 2024 against cat density, calculated as cats per 10,000 people, alongside GDP, health spending, and parasite exposure data drawn from antibody studies of pregnant women across the 93 countries. The headline finding is counterintuitive on the surface: cats are the primary host of Toxoplasma gondii, and the parasite has been linked in previous research to changes in mood, behavior, and mental health, so one might expect countries with more cats to have more parasite exposure, and therefore potentially lower happiness scores. Instead, the cat variable and the parasite variable moved in opposite directions. Countries with more cats tended to have lower Toxoplasma exposure, not higher. Countries with more cats also tended to be wealthier, with higher GDPs and greater health spending, and the authors suggest that in richer countries cats are more likely to be kept indoors, fed prepared food, and given veterinary care, all conditions that reduce the environmental spread of the parasite.
Together, cat density, health spending, and parasite exposure explained 47 percent of the differences in happiness scores across the 93 countries, a striking proportion for factors not typically included in standard happiness research. The authors were careful and consistent about what the findings do and do not show. This is a country-level analysis, not a study of individual cat owners, and it cannot establish that having more cats makes people happier any more than it can establish that Toxoplasma directly makes people less happy. The cat numbers in the analysis combined pets, strays, and feral cats, groups with very different relationships to people and to parasite transmission. The Toxoplasma data came from pregnant women and may not represent the broader population. And the analysis did not control for sanitation, urbanization, temperature, or humidity, all of which could influence parasite exposure, cat populations, and happiness simultaneously. What the study does add to the broader conversation is a question about what shapes national well-being that the standard economic and social frameworks may be missing. The authors described their most interesting finding as the discovery that countries with more cats did not show greater Toxoplasma exposure, but less, because it highlights how human, animal, and disease interactions are shaped not by the simple presence of an animal but by the social and economic conditions in which those interactions happen. Finland, Iceland, and Sweden all rank among the world's happiest countries and all have relatively high cat populations kept primarily as indoor pets. The data cannot say whether the cats are part of the reason. The association is real enough that the researchers say it deserves further investigation.
