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According to the latest Gallup International poll, the Spanish are the happiest nation in the European Union.
Although the overall happiness of Spaniards has gone down by 7% compared with 2019, they are still the second most optimistic nation - after Finland - in Europe, which is statistically the most pessimistic continent in the world.
The Worldwide Hope "End of Year" survey, in which Spain participated via Madrid-based market research company Sigma Dos, interviewed some 38,709 people, around a thousand men and a thousand women in each country, between October and December 2020.
According to the survey, Spanish people are slightly more optimistic than the worldwide average (43%). The survey found that 46% of Spaniards believe that 2021 will be better than 2020, compared to the 29% who believe it will be worse and the 23% who believe it will be the same.
Across Europe as a whole, only 35% of people admit to being optimistic about next year, with Italians, somewhat surprisingly, the most pessimistic of all - only 13% of them think 2021 will be better than 2020, followed by the Poles (15%) and the Bulgarians (16%); at the other end of the scale and showing much greater optimism about next year are the Finns (57%).
When it comes to happiness in general, 65% of Spaniards describe themselves as either happy or very happy, compared to the 7% who feel unhappy and the 26% who said they felt neither happy nor unhappy. In 2019, 72% of Spaniards said they were happy.
Across the European Union as a whole, only 50% of people admitted to feeling happy.
Less than half the worldwide population (46%) thinks 2021 will be a year of economic difficulties and only 25% believes will be an economically prosperous year.
Citizens of the EU appear to be the most pessimistic of all: 61% of them think next year will be blighted with economic problems; conversely, the most optimistic are the Indians and Africans - in both cases 56% believe that 2021 will bring them prosperity.
54% of the world's population in general described themselves as happy and only 14% said they were unhappy. The happiest nations of all were the Indians (64% said they felt happy), followed by Latin-Americans (61%).
Country by country, the happiest nations of the 41 who took part in the survey are Kyrgyzstan, with 85% of the nation declaring themselves to be happy, followed by Ecuador, with an 80% happiness score.
Rosa Díaz, head of Sigma Dos said, "expectations are linked to desires and it's logical that after such a hard year, the majority of Spaniards not only think, but also need to believe that 2021 will be better".
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