25/07/2012

We're Happy And Now They Know It

The first national survey into the slippery category of emotional well-being has found that people in Northern Ireland are the happiest in the UK.

The Office for National Statistics survey, carried out between April 2011 and March 2012, asked 165,000 people across the country to rate themselves between zero and 10 on four questions.

Northern Irish respondents scored highest on the questions "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?" and "Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?"

They came joint first with the south west of England on the question "Do you feel the things you do in life are worthwhile?" but were pipped to the happiest spot, again by the south west, when answering "How anxious did you feel yesterday?"

The survey was introduced as an effort to measure national performance in an alternative way than by Gross Domestic Product.

But perhaps given the subjective nature of the questions and results, Labour have damned it as a "statement of the bleeding obvious".

Results for Northern Ireland were not broken down by council area, but parts of Scotland and the east Midlands of England had higher happiness levels.

Across the country, married people were the happiest when responses were broken down by marital status.

About 45% of unemployed people rated their overall ‘life satisfaction’ as less than seven out of 10, while the figure among employed people was 20%.

(NE)

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