New Year Poll: global happiness remains high in spite of economic gloom
2012.01.03The Global Net Happiness stands at 40% points while Net Happiness for Ireland is only 20% – the lowest recorded in Western Europe. 45% of the Irish feel happy, 25% feel unhappy while 30% express they are neither happy nor unhappy.
Demographic analysis for Ireland shows that those aged 35-54 years are significant less happy than other age groups with almost as many ‘unhappy’ as ‘happy’ with their life. The survey also reveals that females are less happy than males and that happiness increases with social class. There is few regional differences but people in Connaught and Ulster appear less happy than the rest of the country.
Zurich, 30 December 2011
— A new global poll conducted on the run up to the new year shows that low hopes for the economy fail to dampen a feeling of Happiness at new year. Thus when asked: Are you happy or unhappy, the global net happiness stands at 40% showing that the “happy” outnumber the “unhappy” by 40% points. The global survey was carried out by the world’s largest independent network of opinion pollsters, WIN-Gallup International in over 58 countries(52,913 interviews), covering the vast majority of world population. The network has conducted this annual poll on the eve of new year since 1977.
The global poll which had earlier focused on prospects for the economy added a question this year on “Happiness”. The findings turned out to be quite revealing. The attainment of Happiness is aided by economic hopefulness; but often “happiness” refuses to be subdued by economic gloom. Thus 42% of the global “gloomies” who are gloomy about economic prospects of 2012 say they are on the whole “happy”. Evidently despite economic gloom most European nations are in the Happy Box.
The survey also finds that nations which are struggling hard to move up on global economic ladder produce a lot of “unhappy” people. Thus net happiness in China is nearly half of global average and stands at 25%. In contrast the economically pressured Spaniards score 55% net happiness. Perhaps the feeling to “be happy” is also a cultural trait!
According to the WIN-Gallup International Global Barometer of Happiness 53% of the world say they feel happy while 13% say they feel “unhappy”. Another 31% say they are “neither happy nor unhappy” while 3% did not respond.
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