You're reading: Sociologist: Ukrainians happy only when they can ‘buy everything’

The is a direct link for Ukrainians between feelings of happiness and wage levels, which is not seen in other countries, Director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) Volodymyr Paniotto has said in an interview with the Mirror Weekly. Ukraine online publication.

"We are seeing a linear dependence between feelings of happiness in people and their financial condition. Surveys in other countries show that this dependence is not linear: the less poor a person becomes, the more his feeling of happiness grows, but starting at the medium level of financial security, it ceases to grow. And there are no options in our county: the higher the level of financial security is, the more happiness there is in life," Paniotto said.

He said that Ukraine had a very small number of people "who can afford to buy almost everything" – 0.1%, and 94% among them are happy. At the same time, among those who consider themselves poor, 24% are "definitely happy."

"According to studies conducted by the World Values Survey, the happiest people live in Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico. Generally speaking, the overall figure of happiness and life satisfaction is the ratio of financial security to claims. Apparently, the needs of people in these countries are quite low," Paniotto said.

As an example, he cited figures from 25 years ago.

"In 1985, we examined the level of satisfaction with life among residents of Kyiv, by measuring it on a scale from -100 to +100 points. Residents of Kyiv showed a rather high figure of +36. Four years later, in 1989, it dropped to +1. There still was no gap in economic ties, there were only ‘perestroika’ and publicity: the borders opened and the media became to cover life in other countries more realistically. And the level of complaints of Ukrainians began to grow, despite the fact that the level of financial security remained the same. Therefore, life satisfaction has decreased," Paniotto said.