“Happiness Atlas 2023”
The happiest Germans live here
© Drobot Dean / Adobe Stock
The new “SKL Happiness Atlas” is here! In which state are people happiest? Where least? And what does the gap between West and East look like?
11,425 people aged 16 and over were surveyed about their life satisfaction from August 2022 to June 2023. 3,109 people aged 16 and over also reported their satisfaction with the areas of work, income, family and health. Out came this one “SKL Happiness Atlas 2023”. The winner in the national comparison: The same as last year.
Schleswig-Holstein makes you the happiest
As in 2022, the federal state with the most satisfied residents is Schleswig-Holstein this year. On a scale of zero to ten, the higher the number the more satisfied, the average is 7.21 points. Hamburg takes second place with 7.11 points, closely followed by Bavaria with 7.09, Hesse with 7.06 and North Rhine-Westphalia with 7.0 points.
In the lower places are Berlin with 6.62 points, Saarland with 6.21 points and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 6.19.
The gap between West and East is shrinking
While the gap in life satisfaction in western and eastern Germany was 0.49 points in 2011, the first year of the “Happiness Atlas”, this is only 0.2 in 2023 (West: 6.96, East: 6.76) . Across the Federal Republic in 2019 there was the highest level of satisfaction in years – in 2020 the average fell enormously with the start of the corona pandemic. The lowest level since the survey took place followed in 2021. Although basic life satisfaction has increased since then, the previous level has not yet been reached again.
“New crisis factors” are responsible
“The recovery from the decline in happiness during the Corona period is progressing slowly. The modest increase in happiness shows that certain impairments caused by the pandemic are still having an impact and that new crisis factors are dampening the recovery process“, says Prof. Dr. Bernd Raffelhüschen, scientific leader of the study. These include, among other things, the war in Ukraine and inflation. There is significantly more fear, even among younger people, and people are lonelier. Positive: families and women have increased in satisfaction. But above all, the proportion of those who only rated their satisfaction as one to four remained high – before the pandemic it was eight percent, during it it was 14 percent and in 2023 it will still be more than ten percent.
Sources used: skl-gluecksatlas.de, kommunikation.uni-freiburg.de, tagesschau.de