People in Nordic Region Are More Satisfied Than Other EU Citizens With Big City Life

Are you young, female, well-educated, in a job, and live in a big city in a rich EU country? If you answer yes to all these questions, you’re probably among people who are most satisfied with your life.

But even if you are without a job and an education, you’re probably more satisfied with your life if you live in a larger city in a Nordic EU country than people in the same situation in other EU countries. That’s according to a new study that compared groups of citizens in 25 EU countries, and asked how satisfied they are with their lives.

“There are quite large and interesting differences between Nordic and other EU countries, in how satisfied different groups of the population actually are,” says professor Fredrik Carlsen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

He and Statistics Norway researcher Stefan Leknes are the authors of a recent studytitled “Who are satisfied with life in cities? Evidence for 25 European countries” published in Urban Studies.