Health satisfaction
The Germans really are that happy
Status: 09.11.2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes
According to the “Happiness Atlas”, men are happier than women
Quelle: Getty Images/Halfpoint Images
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The new “Happiness Atlas” shows: People in this country are becoming happier again. Men are therefore happier than women. But in one region of the Federal Republic, citizens are more frustrated than elsewhere.
Even after the end of the corona pandemic, people in Germany are still not as satisfied as they were in 2019. This is evident from the new “Happiness Atlas” that the University of Freiburg created with the support of the Süddeutsche Klasselotterie (SKL). On a scale between 0 and 10, respondents rated their satisfaction with an average of 6.92 points – 0.22 points less than in 2019 (7.14). This was the result of regular interviews in which around 11,400 people aged 16 and over were surveyed between August 2022 and June 2023.
Compared to the results of the previous Happiness Atlas (survey between January and October 2022), satisfaction has increased by 0.06 points, albeit only slightly. “The modest increase in happiness makes it clear that certain impairments caused by the pandemic are still having an impact, even though almost all restrictions have been lifted,” explains Bettina Rothärmel, Chairwoman of the Joint Class Lottery of the States, in the foreword to the “Happiness Atlas”. In addition, there were multiple crises, such as inflation or the war in Ukraine, which had an impact on satisfaction.
Another reason: According to the Happiness Atlas, the number of people who only gave values between 0 and 4 on the satisfaction scale and are therefore considered “extremely unhappy” has remained almost unchanged. According to their own statements, women are still more dissatisfied with their lives than men of the same age (difference of 0.06 points). Accordingly, the gap is no longer as big as it was in 2020, when the difference was 0.19 points.
According to the study results, satisfaction with family life has developed positively: it rose by 0.06 points to a value of 7.48. Despite inflation, there was also an increase of 0.15 points (6.64) in income satisfaction. According to the study, this could be related to a habituation effect.
When comparing the German regions, the leaders and bottom of the table are unchanged compared to the previous survey: The Happiness Atlas sees the happiest people in Schleswig-Holstein (7.21 points), the unhappiest in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (6.19).
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