The world’s happiest children live in three countries. Is Romania one of them?

A recent study conducted on 53,000 children aged between 10 and 12 reveals that children in Turkey, Romania and Colombia are very happy. On the other hand, South Korea and South Africa come last in the ranking, according to a study by the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. The dissatisfaction of South Korean children might be justified by the intense school pressure. The study, conducted by researchers from universities in Germany, Israel, UK and Spain in 2013 and 2014, tried to find out which are the countries with the happiest children. The results show that Turkish, Romanian and Colombian children are the most satisfied. Most of the 50,000 children in the 15 countries rated their satisfaction with life as a whole (on a scale from zero to ten) positively, but the percentage of children with very high well-being (10 out of 10) varied from around 78% in Turkey and 77% in Romania and Colombia to around 40% in South Korea, according to the study. The study focused on several aspects of children’s lives, such as family, the time spent at home, friendship, school, and money. Children in Northern Europe are most unhappy with their looks and have the lowest level of self-confidence. In terms of school, African children are the most satisfied with their school life. When it comes to children’s rights, 77% of those who live in Norway say they know their rights, much more than in the UK – 36%. In terms of their free time, children in Poland and Estonia spend a lot of time doing their homework while those in Norway and Israel do sport. The full communication on the report is here. One in three Romanian children is poor Almost half of Romanian children have been victims of bullying, study shows Study: Romania’s countryside children work in the household, go to bed hungry, skip school for chores Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (photo source: freeimages.com)