Cristina Hodgson
ACCORDING to a recent survey, Spaniards lead the list of happiness in the European Union.
The ‘End of the Year Global Happiness and Hope Index’, by Gallup International, the first and oldest ‘End of Year’ Hope index carried out interviews with 38,709 people, a thousand men and another thousand women in each country between October and December 2020.
In terms of happiness, 65% of Spaniards describe themselves as happy or very happy, compared to 7% who feel unhappy and 28% who say they are neither happy nor unhappy.
Compared with the rest of Europe, happiness was only perceived by 50% of those interviewed.
By country, the happiest of the 41 that participated in the study is Kyrgyzstan with 85% happy citizens, followed by Ecuador with 80%.
In regards to the economic outlook for 2021, 46% of the world’s population believe that the coming year will be a year of economic difficulties and only 25% believe that it will be a year of economic prosperity. The rest are undecided.
Europe in general is the most pessimistic continent with 61% of EU citizens believing that next year will be a year of economic hardship.
The Italians being the gloomiest of all of Europe with only 13% of those asked believing 2021 will be better, followed by the Poles (15%) and the Bulgarians (16%).
The most optimistic in Europe are the Finns (57%) followed by the Spanish (46%).
According to Rosa Diaz, general manager of the survey in Spain ‘expectations are linked to desires and it is logical that after such a hard year, a majority of Spaniards not only think but need to believe that 2021 will be better’.
