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Question: If you were to consider your life in general these days, how happy or unhappy would you say you are, on the whole?
Choices: "Very happy" "Fairly happy" "Not very happy" "Not at all happy"
Data: % of "Very happy"
Period:
Area:
26 countries/ areas
Highlight:
1 Ireland44.1%
2 United States36.7%
3 New Zealand33.0%
4 United Kingdom32.2%
5 Denmark31.8%
6 Netherlands31.1%
7 Australia29.7%
8 Switzerland28.4%
9 Chile 27.5%
10 Canada25.4%
11 Israel24.5%
12 Sweden24.4%
13 Austria22.6%
14 Norway22.1%
15 Portugal19.5%
16 Spain19.2%
17 Poland19.0%
18 Japan14.3%
19 France14.1%
20 Germany13.5%
21 Italy12.4%
22 Slovenia9.3%
23 Czech Republic8.9%
24 Slovakia7.1%
25 Hungary4.7%
26 Latvia4.6%

Note
Can't choose/ No answer are excluded. Germany: unweighted sum of West and East Germany. Israel: unweighted sum of Jews and Arabs. United Kingdom: excluding Northern Ireland.

No data for 12 countries.

Source
ISSP 1998

Correlations with major national performance indices
Life satisfaction (10 steps)
No. of data26
Regression equation
Y = 2.429762 X +6.215
Correlation coefficient (r)0.570
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.325

GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data26
Regression equation
Y = 167462.944978 X +11776.809
Correlation coefficient (r)0.678
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.460

Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data26
Regression equation
Y = 12.981378 X +77.746
Correlation coefficient (r)0.422
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.178

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data26
Regression equation
Y = 0.408645 X +1.525
Correlation coefficient (r)0.130
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.017

Suicide, age-standardized (per 100 000 population)
No. of data26
Regression equation
Y = -4.405553 X +10.628
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.164
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.027