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Top 10 countries leading in work-life balance in 2025: Where does India rank globally?
Global Life-Work Balance Index 2025 Ranking: New Zealand retained its #1 position for the third consecutive year, joined by seven European countries among the top 10 for best life-work balance in 2025; notably, no countries from the Asian or MENA regions made the list.
Global Life-Work Balance Index 2025: The world's best 10 countries for work-life balance in 2025 (Canva)
Global Life-Work Balance Index 2025: Work-life balance is becoming non-negotiable and a top motivator for employees worldwide.
About 83% of employees reported work-life balance as a top priority in their current or future roles, outranking pay and compensation in importance for the first time in 22 years in the 2025 Randstad work survey.
This can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ‘always on’ culture, which led to the blurring of boundaries in professional and personal life and employees struggling to fully ‘disconnect’ from work.
Remote, rejecting the traditional term ‘work-life balance’, has rephrased it into ‘life-work balance’, as life comes first and work should exist in service of enriching it.
In its annual survey of the Global Life-Work Balance Index 2025, it highlights countries that are leading the charge, with economic, technological, and societal factors influencing much of the workforce globally.
New Zealand retained its #1 rank for the third time in a row, improving its score by more than six points due to a slight increase in minimum wage, along with European countries dominating with seven ranking in the top 10; however, strikingly, no countries made it from the Asia and MENA region.
On the contrary, the largest global economies like India rank #42 globally with a 45.81 score, with 35 days of annual statutory leave; whereas, the United States of America is on its way to a burnout epidemic with long working hours and limited paid leave, falling to #59th position out of the 60 countries surveyed in 2025.
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Below are the world’s 10 best countries for life-work balance in 2025:
| Rank | Country & Capital | Index Score/100 | Statutory Annual Leave | LGBTQ+ Inclusivity |
| 1 | New Zealand, Wellington | 88.67 | 32 days | 75 |
| 2 | Ireland, Dublin | 81.17 | 30 days | 72 |
| 3 | Belgium, Brussels | 75.91 | 30 days | 74 |
| 4 | Germany, Berlin | 74.65 | 30 days | 81 |
| 5 | Norway, Oslo | 74.2 | 35 days | 87 |
| 6 | Denmark, Copenhagen | 73.76 | 35 days | 80 |
| 7 | Canada, Ottawa | 73.46 | 17 days | 78 |
| 8 | Australia, Canberra | 72.1 | 30 days | 75 |
| 9 | Spain, Madrid | 71.94 | 36 days | 83 |
| 10 | Finland, Helsinki | 70.86 | 30 days | 74 |
Source: Remote – Global Life-Work Index 2025
Methodology: Remote assesses the quality of life-work balance in the world’s top 60 GDP countries, ranking each nation out of 100. The overall score is determined through minimum wage, sick leave, maternity leave, healthcare availability, public happiness, average working hours, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity.
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