Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Society

Danes' ranking of their own happiness came out tops, followed by Swedes, Finns and Norwegians. Bulgarians came bottom of the table, with Macedonians and Turks just ahead of them, reports LETA/AFP.

The European Quality of Life Survey, carried out by the Dublin-based EU research agency Eurofound, reveals that Europeans were generally satisfied with their quality of life – though levels varied considerably across countries.

On average, Europeans rated their life satisfaction at seven out of 10 – and their happiness at 7.5 out of 10. Danes put their happiness at 8.3 out of 10 and their life satisfaction at 8.5, while for Bulgarians the averages were 5.8 and five respectively.

Latvia, both regarding residents' life satisfaction at 6 out of 10 and happiness with 6.8 out of 10, ranked fourth from the bottom of the list, behind Lithuania and Estonia.

Lithuanians evaluate their life satisfaction at 6.3 and happiness at 7.3 points out of 10, whereas for Estonians these figures are 6.7 and 7.4, respectively.

Eurofound conducted more than 35,000 interviews in the 27 EU member states, candidate countries Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey, plus Norway from September 2007 to February 2008 – well before the current economic downturn.