74% of people polled in Luxembourg in 2018 said they had been happy all or most of the time in the previous four weeks Shutterstock

74% of people polled in Luxembourg in 2018 said they had been happy all or most of the time in the previous four weeks Shutterstock

A Eurostat ranking compiled 2018 data found that 74% of respondents in Luxembourg recorded being happy most or all of the time in the four weeks prior to being surveyed.

The largest proportion of regularly happy respondents was found in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland, who all occupied joint first place with 76% of respondents in high spirits. People were the least often happy in Latvia (31%), Croatia (42%), Lithuania (45%), Greece and Romania (46%). The EU average was 62%.

The findings contrast with those of the 2019 World Happiness League Tables, published 20 March, in which Luxembourg occupied fourteenth place, ahead of Belgium (18). In 2018 Luxembourg meanwhile occupied seventeenth place (out of 160) in the World Happiness Report for immigrant happiness.