People in the EU are most satisfied with their personal relationships

USPA NEWS - With an overall average score of 7.8 on a scale from 0 to 10, people in the EU aged 16 and over were globally most satisfied with their personal relationships. Satisfaction with personal relationships indeed ranked first in almost all EU Member States, according Eurostat.

Exceptions were Belgium and Finland (where satisfaction with accommodation was higher rated than personal relationships), Bulgaria (satisfaction with accommodation, with job and with commuting time all came ahead of personal relationships) and Sweden (satisfaction with green & recreational areas). It is notable that satisfaction with personal relationships was higher than life overall satisfaction in every EU Member State.

In contrast, the area of lowest satisfaction for people living in the EU was their financial situation (an average of 6.0 among the EU population aged 16 and over). This is the case in all Member States apart from Sweden, where time use ranked slightly lower than the financial situation. Time use is also an important issue in nineteen other EU Member States, where it ranked second lowest in terms of satisfaction. Noticeable exceptions were Bulgaria (where people were second least satisfied with living environment and green & recreational areas), Cyprus, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Portugal and Slovakia (green & recreational areas), Italy (living environment) and Latvia (accommodation).

Among the EU Member States, those most satisfied with their personal relationships were to be found in Ireland (8.6), Denmark and Austria (both 8.5) and Malta (8.4). For the financial situation, the most satisfied were to be found in the three Nordic EU Member States: Denmark and Sweden (both 7.6) and Finland (7.5). It should be noted that satisfaction with financial situation had the widest gap between Member States, with a 3.9 difference between the highest and lowest average. In contrast, job satisfaction and time use had the narrowest gaps between Member States, both with a 2.1 difference between the highest and lowest averages.