OSLO, March 9 (AFP) - If you're looking for bit of cheer you might want to consider a trip to Norway, where nine out of 10 people claim to be happy, according to a poll published on Wednesday.
Six out of 10 Norwegians are "fairly happy", while one third of the Scandinavian country's inhabitants say they are "very happy", according to the poll of some 1,500 people conducted by marketing analysis firm MMI in January.
Just five percent of those questioned said they were only "slightly happy" or "unhappy".
"Norwegians are not ecstatically happy, but we are fairly content," MMI research chief Ottar Hellevik told the newspaper Bergens Tidende, which published the poll.
Norwegians are in fact among the happiest people in the world, but the inhabitants of neighboring Denmark tend to score even higher on happiness polls, according to Hellevik.
Some 83 percent of the Norwegians polled said their financial situation was "fairly good" or "very good", but studies show that people here are not buying their happiness.
"There are no variations in the level of happiness in periods where the economic indicators sway a lot," Hellevik said, pointing out that towards the end of the 1980s the economy was struggling. Later, from the mid-90s, Norway saw explosive growth in income and material standards, but the population's happiness level remained unchanged during these years.
Norway, third largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia, is today one of the world's wealthiest nations.
But all the money can actually detract from Norwegians' feeling of happiness, Hellevik said.
"People become frustrated more easily because they feel they don't have enough money, and they compare themselves to others more," he said.
What creates a happy Norwegian is instead family life, good health and friends, he insisted.
03/09/2005 12:36 GMT