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Polish youngsters are happier than British young people finds a new survey by the EU which surveyed age groups across the EU about their life satisfaction.

There were a lot of other surprising findings in the research conducted by Eurostat for International Happy Day.

In 2013 Europeans were asked "How happy are you with your life?", and they answered from 0 ("not satisfied at all") to 10 ("fully satisfied").

The UK has an average score of 7.3, the same as Germany and Poland. The highest scoring countries are - unsurprisingly - Finland, Switzerland and Sweden. And the lowest are Bulgaria, Serbia and Cyprus.

The EU average score is bang on 7 out of 10.

Over 75s in Bulgaria were the most unhappy of all

When you start looking at age breakdown, it gets more interesting. Young people were more likely to be optimistic about their life, always ranking their life satisfaction quite highly.

But in Bulgaria particularly, elderly people - those over 75 - were spectacularly unhappy. They rated their life satisfaction at just 3.8.

Retired people in Denmark are the most happy

But Danish people buck the trend. There the newly-retired - people between 65 and 74 voted their life satisfaction at 8.6, the highest of any age group and country in Europe.

Second to those, young people aged 16-24 in Austria were almost as satisfied. They rated life satisfaction at 8.4.

UK oldsters buck the trend too

The most satisfied people in the UK were 65-74 year olds who rated their happiness at 7.7 out of ten. Well above those in the 35 - 64 age bracket who had scored paltry 7.1.

The dolce vita countries of the Mediterranean score badly

Countries normally associated with sunshine and the good life scored relatively low. Greeks had an average happiness level of 6.2, Italians notched up an average life satisfaction of 6.7 and the Spanish averaged out at 6.9.

Health before money

They found that health was the most important factor in deciding life satisfaction, followed by wealth, and then job security or employment.

Which goes to show that money really isn't everything...

[Source: Eurostat ]