Are Ukrainians happy?

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29.11.2010

Are Ukrainians happy?

According to a study conducted by the Rating Group in October 2010, 68% of Ukrainians described themselves as relatively happy, although only 17% said they felt unequivocally happy. At the same time, one in five respondents considered themselves unhappy, while another 13% were unable to give a definite answer.
The year that had passed did not make Ukrainians happier. Compared with a similar survey conducted in October 2009, the share of people who felt happy to a greater or lesser extent declined slightly from 70% to 68%. More importantly, the proportion of those who considered themselves unequivocally happy fell sharply, from 27% to 17%. As a year earlier, residents of the North and the West felt the happiest, while those living in the Donbas felt the least happy.
Over the year, moods in the North (78%), Center (65%), and South (66%) remained almost unchanged. In contrast, at the geographical extremes of the country happiness declined: most sharply in the West, from 85% to 72% (with the share of those who felt unequivocally happy halving from 39% to 19%), in the East from 73% to 64%, and in the Donbas from 58% to 52%. Notably, at least one in four residents of the Donbas felt unhappy, and only 9% described themselves as unequivocally happy.
As in the previous year, the study confirmed the notion that the sense of happiness in Ukraine tends to decline with age. Young people aged 18–29 were the happiest group, with 70% describing themselves as happy, while the least happy were elderly people, among whom only 53% felt happy. Nearly one third of respondents aged over 60 considered themselves unhappy.
Unmarried respondents tended to feel happier than those who were married, although married people were much happier than those who were divorced or living alone. People with higher levels of education were also happier: 74% of respondents with higher education described themselves as happy, compared with only 51% among those with only general secondary education.
The popular saying that “money does not buy happiness” was not confirmed by the survey. On the contrary, the higher people’s incomes, the happier they tended to feel. Among respondents whose household income exceeded 3,000 hryvnias per month, 79% felt happy and only 10% unhappy. By contrast, among those whose family income was below 1,000 hryvnias, only 49% felt happy, while 37% felt unhappy.
The study also touched on a topic often discussed among women, showing how body weight is related to feelings of happiness. Among women, the pattern was clear: the lower their weight, the happier they felt. For example, 74% of women weighing under 60 kilograms described themselves as happy, compared with only 55% among women weighing 90 kilograms or more. Among men, the relationship was the opposite: the thinnest men were the least happy, while heavier men tended to be happier. Only 57% of men weighing under 60 kilograms felt happy, compared with 70% among those weighing 90 kilograms or more. In this sense, the “happiest” weight for women was under 60 kilograms, while for men it was in the range of 70–79 kilograms.

Methodology

Survey population: adult population of Ukraine aged 18 and older.
Sample size: 2,000 respondents.
Method: face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire.
Sampling error: no more than 3% for values close to 50%, 2.6% for values close to 30%, and 1.8% for values close to 10%.
Fieldwork dates: 4–11 October 2010.
- West: Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi.
- Center: Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy.
- North: Kyiv city, Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv.
- South: Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol.
- East: Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv.Donbas: Donetsk, Luhansk.