Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, has presented research with an update for 2022 on the level of satisfaction in individual EU countries. It shows that Poles are among the most satisfied with the lives of people in the European Union (EU).

In the survey, EU residents rated their overall satisfaction with life at an average of 7.1 points on a scale of 0 to 10. Poland turned out to be one of the happiest countries in the EU, with a satisfaction index of 7.7 points. Between 2021 and 2022, satisfaction with life in Poland increased, especially among women and people with a university education.

“In 2022, EU residents rated their overall satisfaction with life at an average of 7.1 points on a scale from 0 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied). In 18 of the 27 EU countries, overall life satisfaction was rated at a level higher than or equal to the EU average”, Eurostat reports in its latest report.

One of the happiest countries in the EU is Poland. The indicator for Poland was 7.7 pts/10, i.e. we are satisfied and almost ‘very satisfied’. Only Austrians are more satisfied than Poles in the EU, as only there the indicator was calculated higher – at 7.9 points.

At our level of feeling satisfied with life are Romanians and Finns. In Romania, the index did not change between 2021 and 2022, in Finland it worsened by 0.2 points, in Austria it worsened by 0.1 points, while in Poland it improved by 0.2 points over the period. A larger one-year improvement than in Poland occurred only in Cyprus, Hungary, and Malta.

In 2022, more satisfaction with life in Poland was declared by women (7.7 pts.) than by men (7.6 pts.), which is due to the improvement in this indicator just in 2022. – when women’s satisfaction increased by 0.2 points and men’s by 0.1 points. Satisfaction among people with higher education improved the most, by 0.2 points – to 8 points – and more among women than men.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński