The Spanish - happiest nation in Europe according to latest Gallup poll
The Spanish - happiest nation in Europe according to latest Gallup poll
Image by Jill Wellington on Pixabay
According to the latest Gallup International poll, the Spanish are the happiest nation in the European Union.
Although the overall happiness of Spaniards has gone down by 7% compared with 2019, they are still the second most optimistic nation - after Finland - in Europe, which is statistically the most pessimistic continent in the world.
The Worldwide Hope "End of Year" survey, in which Spain participated via Madrid-based market research company Sigma Dos, interviewed some 38,709 people, around a thousand men and a thousand women in each country, between October and December 2020.
According to the survey, Spanish people are slightly more optimistic than the worldwide average (43%). The survey found that 46% of Spaniards believe that 2021 will be better than 2020, compared to the 29% who believe it will be worse and the 23% who believe it will be the same.
Across Europe as a whole, only 35% of people admit to being optimistic about next year, with Italians, somewhat surprisingly, the most pessimistic of all - only 13% of them think 2021 will be better than 2020, followed by the Poles (15%) and the Bulgarians (16%); at the other end of the scale and showing much greater optimism about next year are the Finns (57%).
When it comes to happiness in general, 65% of Spaniards describe themselves as either happy or very happy, compared to the 7% who feel unhappy and the 26% who said they felt neither happy nor unhappy. In 2019, 72% of Spaniards said they were happy.
Across the European Union as a whole, only 50% of people admitted to feeling happy.
Less than half the worldwide population (46%) thinks 2021 will be a year of economic difficulties and only 25% believes will be an economically prosperous year.
Citizens of the EU appear to be the most pessimistic of all: 61% of them think next year will be blighted with economic problems; conversely, the most optimistic are the Indians and Africans - in both cases 56% believe that 2021 will bring them prosperity.
54% of the world's population in general described themselves as happy and only 14% said they were unhappy. The happiest nations of all were the Indians (64% said they felt happy), followed by Latin-Americans (61%).
Country by country, the happiest nations of the 41 who took part in the survey are Kyrgyzstan, with 85% of the nation declaring themselves to be happy, followed by Ecuador, with an 80% happiness score.
Rosa Díaz, head of Sigma Dos said, "expectations are linked to desires and it's logical that after such a hard year, the majority of Spaniards not only think, but also need to believe that 2021 will be better".
