Kenyans are among the saddest people in the world with many of them struggling to survive, a Gallup poll released on Tuesday revealed.
Out of 124 countries in the world, Kenya ranks 13 among those with the largest number of people most dissatisfied with their lives.
This is two points behind Uganda and four ahead of Tanzania while Chad lies at the end of the pack.
The most satisfied people in the world are in Denmark, Sweden and Canada, in that order.
The most dissatisfied people live in poor African countries while the happiest live mainly in rich European countries, indicating a relationship between wealth and satisfaction in life. For example, in Denmark 72 per cent say they are thriving and happy with their lives and only 27 per cent say they are getting by while only one per cent are suffering, according to a Gallup news alert.
In Kenya, with a huge gap between the poor and the rich, only six per cent say they are happy with their lives, while almost 80 per cent are struggling to survive and 16 per cent living in agony.
A similar trend was observed in the other two East African countries but in Tanzania the number of those who are sad is the same as those struggling and those suffering.
Gallup warns governments against depending solely on Gross Domestic Product to assume their people are satisfied.
“As the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt showed earlier this year, leaders should not rely on GDP alone as an indicator of how well their countries and their citizens are doing. Monitoring and improving behavioural economic measures of wellbeing are important to helping leaders better the lives of all their residents,” say the Gallup alert.
The Gallup’s global wellbeing surveys were carried out last year in face to face interviews and phone calls.
Another global Gallup survey released earlier this month indicated more than half of adult Kenyans found it difficult to buy food.
When asked: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food?” 57 per cent of Kenyans responded affirmatively.
About 60 per cent of Ugandans answered in the affirmative.
Seventy nine per cent of Kenyans said they were generally finding it difficult to buy food.
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