DESPITE THE ferocity of the recession, Irish people rate themselves among the most fulfilled and optimistic in the world, according to the results of a global survey.
The Gallup global wellbeing survey for 2010 ranked Ireland 10th in the world among those citizens who regard themselves as thriving.
This may come as a surprise given the deluge of bad news and recriminations since the collapse of the Celtic Tiger.
Gallup surveyed more than 1,000 adults in each of 155 different countries. It claimed its annual survey covers 98 per cent of humanity.
Nearly two-thirds of Irish people (62 per cent) rated themselves as thriving, more than one-third (37 per cent) struggling, but only 1 per cent said they were suffering, according to something called the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.
The scale asked participants to rate their wellbeing on a scale of one to 10.
People are considered thriving if they rate their lives a seven or higher and their lives in five years an eight or higher.
The Irish survey was carried out in May and June last year before the EU-IMF bailout and the tax changes that came into force in the January budget.
Nevertheless, far more Irish people rate themselves as thriving compared to our European paymasters. In booming Germany, only 44 per cent of people rated themselves as thriving, slightly ahead of France at 42 per cent.
More people in both countries saw themselves as struggling.
Ireland was also ahead of the US (59 per cent) and the United Kingdom (54 per cent), which had similar boom and bust housing markets.
However, the global recession is having an impact on all countries with general wellbeing levels down across the world.
In 2007 the last year of the Celtic Tiger, 76 per cent of Irish people rated themselves as thriving, ranking Ireland eighth in the world that year.
The countries with the most fulfilled citizens are Denmark, with 72 per cent and Sweden with 69 per cent.
Two destinations popular with Irish emigrants, Canada (69 per cent) and Australia (65 per cent), are third and fourth respectively.
By and large, the countries with the highest level of wellbeing are those that are the most prosperous.
At the other end of the scale earthquake-hit Haiti (3 per cent), the Central African Republic (2 per cent) and Chad (1 per cent) have the fewest citizens who regard themselves as thriving.
No country in sub-Saharan Africa had a thriving percentage higher than 19 per cent.
