Less than half of Germans, or 41.1 percent, said they rated their lives, or the expectations for their lives, as “thriving,” the poll said, which was the first of its kind ever done by the organization.
The majority of Germans, or 53.1 percent, rated their current lives as “struggling,” and 5.8 percent said they were “suffering,” said Gallup.
Gallup pollsters asked the respondents questions about their well-being and used the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, a ladder scale with steps from zero to 10.
People who gave a response of seven or above regarding their current well-being, and an eight or above for their future prospects, are considered thriving, Gallup said. Those who gave a rating of four or below are considered suffering, and those in-between are classified as struggling.
In both the U.K. and in the United States, 52 percent and 52.9 percent of respective respondents said they were thriving. Around 44 percent of respondents in the two countries said they were struggling, the poll found.
The poll also found a discrepancy in responses among those in Western Germany and Eastern Germany, the latter of which had been under communist rule until 1989.
In Western Germany, 44.2 percent rated their current lives as thriving, 51.2 percent said they were struggling, and 4.7 percent said they were suffering. East Germany, however, fared relatively worse, with only 28.2 percent rating their lives as thriving. The overwhelming majority, or 61 percent, said they were struggling, and 10.8 percent said they were suffering.
“Unemployment in Eastern Germany is significantly higher than what it is in the western half of the country. Average incomes in the east also continue to trail incomes in the west,” Gallup said in a statement.
Age also factored into the responses. For Germany, Britain, and America, around 63 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 said they were thriving, and the responses declined as the respondents got older. However, German responses declined more sharply than in the other two countries.
