Page 58 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

58 I Southeast Europe bne December 2023
Lipyoshka seller at Uzgen bazaar, south Kyrgyzstan. The EBRD's survey found people from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to have the highest life satisfaction. / Clare Nuttall
EBRD survey reveals surprising surge in life satisfaction in Emerging Europe
taking into account the income income level of the country and the family. Now it’s gone,” commented EBRD
chief economist Beata Javorcik in an interview with bne IntelliNews. “The improvement has been broad based. It’s true of men and women, all ages, urban and rural populations.”
The results of the latest Life in Transition Survey (LITS) follow a steady increase in happiness levels in many of the post- communist countries of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe and the former Soviet Union. This is in stark contrast to the beginning of the transition process when they were clustered near the bottom of global league tables such as the World Happiness Report.
“[F]or many people in the EBRD regions, it seems that the transition process is increasing overall satisfaction with life,” the report said.
The report identifies a variety of potential reasons. "One possibility is that people’s answers have been infuenced by growing prosperity. LiTS IV was launched at a time when most economic aggregates were moving in a favourable direction, with supply chains reopening and household demand bouncing back following the relaxation of Covid restrictions,” it said.
“However, two other issues are probably also influencing the results: improvements in the health of the population and favourable developments in labour markets (including a shift towards more pleasant and higher-skilled jobs).”
Clare Nuttall in Glasgow
There has been a strong rise in average life satisfaction across the Emerging Europe, Central Asia and the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) regions, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD’s) latest Transition Report.
Despite the traumas over the last
seven years – which saw first the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, then the war in Ukraine and a severe cost of living crisis – the EBRD’s research shows a broad-based increase in life satisfaction in the region that it attributes to a range of factors including higher incomes, better jobs and improved health.
This has seen countries in the region catch up with their peers in Western
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Europe in terms of life satisfaction. “Once differences in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita had been controlled for, people in transition
“Once differences in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita had been controlled for, people in transition countries were, on average, no longer less satisfied with their lives than people in Germany and Italy”
countries were, on average, no longer less satisfied with their lives than people in Germany and Italy,” said the report. “There used to be a big happiness
gap in our countries until 2016, even
Health is another important indicator, and the report finds people’s assessments of their own health have improved significantly over time.