The results of the Estonian Social Survey show that residents of Estonia are happier than residents of Latvian and Lithuania, but not nearly as happy as people in Finland and Sweden.
The Europe-wide social survey asked respondents to assess how often they had felt happy during the previous four weeks, Anet Muursoo, head of the population and social statistics department at Statistics Estonia, said on the blog of the statistical office. It appears that, in general, Europeans are happy, with 64 percent of respondents across Europe feeling happy always or most of the time. On the other hand, 8.6 of respondents across Europe are happy rarely or never. Just over a quarter of Europeans, 25.8 percent, feel happy some of the time.
In Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands, more than three quarters of the population feel happy all or most of the time. Among the Baltic countries, Estonia has the happiest people — half of the Estonian population, or 50.1 percent, are happy always or most of the time, about a third, or 35.3 percent, feel happy sometimes, 11.3 percent are rarely happy, and 3.3 percent are never happy, said Muursoo.
In Lithuania, 48.1 percent of the population are happy always or most of the time, 32.3 percent are happy sometimes, 9.2 percent are rarely happy, and 2.5 percent are never happy. In Latvia, about 36.8 percent of the population are happy all or most of the time, a slightly higher percentage — 38.4 percent — feel happy some of the time, 16.6 percent rarely feel happy, and 6.4 percent are never happy.
“However, compared with our Nordic neighbors Finland and Sweden, people in Estonia are not as happy. As much as 74 percent of the people in Finland and 69.3 percent in Sweden are happy always or most of the time,” Muursoo. She added that 19.4 percent and 23.8 percent of the population in Finland and Sweden, respectively, feel happy sometimes, 5.4 percent and 6.1 percent rarely feel happy, and 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent never feel happy.
Source: BNS
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