November 21, 2024, 5:45 am | Read time: 5 minutes
For the year 2024, the University of Freiburg and the Süddeutsche Klassenlotterie (SKL) once again investigated the life satisfaction of people in the German federal states. For the first time in several years, there was a clear upward trend: Germans’ happiness is on the rise! TRAVELBOOK reveals the reasons for this and in which city people are most satisfied.
“After the deep slump during the coronavirus pandemic, Germans are returning to the happiness levels of the 2010s.” This can be read in a press release by SKL on the recently published Happiness Atlas 2024. According to the report, the general life satisfaction of Germans has risen significantly, which also applies to the average income satisfaction of people in the country and is apparently particularly pronounced for those in Hamburg.
Overview
People in Hamburg are most satisfied, according to the Happiness Atlas 2024
The Happiness Atlas is a regular study conducted in collaboration between SKL and the University of Freiburg on the life satisfaction of Germans. Therefore, it also provides an insight into trends and long-term changes in the well-being of the inhabitants of Germany. According to the study, people in Schleswig-Holstein were the happiest last year. The Hamburg region now leads the Happiness Atlas 2024. The analysts under the scientific direction of Prof. Bernd Raffelhüschen attribute this to the strong economic power of the Hanseatic city, among other things. Healthcare, education, and care facilities in Hamburg are also of a high standard.
“Well-being on the Alster will even be higher in 2024 than in 2019,” the publication states. This marker is significant. After this point in time, life satisfaction among Germans recorded a conspicuous coronavirus low. According to the figures, this seems to have been largely overcome in the federal states.
For whom satisfaction has risen most significantly
Apparently, it was specifically groups of people that suffered the most during the pandemic, i.e., from the consequences of the various coronavirus measures (contact restrictions, closure of care facilities, etc.), and who are now experiencing the most significant increase in happiness. According to the Happiness Atlas 2024, these include people living alone, teenagers and young adults, as well as working mothers. A normalization has now taken place, and this “can also be seen in the sharp increase in satisfaction with leisure time and a slight recovery in family satisfaction”.
Data collection methodology for the Happiness Atlas 2024
The data on which the results of the Happiness Atlas 2024 are based comes from 12 representative interviews with around 12,500 Germans conducted between July 2023 and June 2024. The Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research was responsible for these interviews, which surveyed participants over the age of 16 on areas of life such as work, income, family, and health in order to determine their general life satisfaction. In addition, the findings from computer-assisted online surveys conducted by the Berlin-based opinion research institute Ipsos with a total of 2,000 participants, were also included in the evaluation. The focus here was specifically on the topics of inflation and the war in Ukraine – specifically, whether and, if so, to what extent the associated worries were affecting their well-being.
Conspicuous features
One of the key findings of the Happiness Atlas 2024 was that Germans’ general life satisfaction is increasing despite crises. The experts believe that this could be due to increasing resilience within the population. As is the case every year, the study also revealed certain regional differences. For example, people in the southern federal states, particularly Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, are generally the most satisfied on average. In Eastern Germany, on the other hand, the figures are lower overall. Those responsible explain this with the lower average income in the east and a lower proportion of property ownership. However, they also observe a certain upward trend in this year’s study. Incidentally, Saxony-Anhalt is by far the best-placed Eastern German state.
The results from the Happiness Atlas 2024 at a glance
- Hamburg
- Bavaria
- Schleswig-Holstein
- North Rhine-Westphalia
- Rhineland-Palatinate
- Baden-Württemberg
- Saxony-Anhalt
- Lower Saxony
- Hesse
- Brandenburg
- Thuringia
- Saxony
- Bremen
- Saarland
- Berlin
- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
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Objective and subjective quality of life often diverge
Interestingly, the data determined for subjective quality of life hardly matches the objective parameters in any of the federal states. Sometimes they even diverge widely. For example, the study showed that the people surveyed in Hamburg had a high level of perceived life satisfaction, which also explains their top position in the Happiness Atlas 2024. However, in terms of objective measures, such as average income, infrastructure, and the environment, Hamburg ranks a modest 10th place.
Only in three federal states does the subjectively described quality of life correspond to the objectively determined quality of life: in Rhineland-Palatinate, Bremen, and Berlin. The capital city, which may have an extreme appeal to visitors from outside Germany, lands in an inglorious penultimate place in terms of the satisfaction of its inhabitants. There are also some “underperformers” among the federal states surveyed. This refers to those that should objectively be at the top of the rankings but fared worse in terms of subjectively perceived life satisfaction. Hesse stands out with a very clear decline in satisfaction. Here, the discrepancy between objective and subjective well-being is a considerable six ranks. In Thuringia and Saarland, for example, it is still five.
| Rank objective quality of life | Rank subjective quality of life | Federal state |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Bavaria |
| 2 | 6 | Baden-Württemberg |
| 3 | 9 | Hesse |
| 4 | 8 | Lower Saxony |
| 5 | 5 | Rhineland-Palatinate |
| 6 | 11 | Thuringia |
| 7 | 10 | Brandenburg |
| 8 | 3 | Schleswig-Holstein |
| 9 | 14 | Saarland |
| 10 | 1 | Hamburg |
| 11 | 12 | Saxony |
| 12 | 4 | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| 13 | 13 | Bremen |
| 14 | 16 | Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania |
| 15 | 15 | Berlin |
| 16 | 7 | Saxony-Anhalt |