Average life satisfaction ratings
- Eurostat dataset
- ilc_pw01
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- mean rating, 0-10 scale
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 7.20 mean rating, 0-10 scale.
- Highest value: Finland at 7.80 mean rating, 0-10 scale; lowest: Türkiye at 5.70 mean rating, 0-10 scale.
- Cross-country mean 7.29 mean rating, 0-10 scale, standard deviation 0.46, coefficient of variation 6.3% across 30 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2013→2025: +5.8% on a constant panel of 30 countries.
How satisfied are Europeans with their lives? Eurostat dataset ilc_pw01 reports average life satisfaction ratings for 30 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 7.20 mean rating, 0-10 scale. Subjective well-being is measured on a fixed 0-10 scale, which makes cross-country means directly comparable.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by Finland (7.80), Romania (7.80), Austria (7.70), Denmark (7.70), Norway (7.70), all expressed in mean rating, 0-10 scale. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Türkiye (5.70), Bulgaria (6.30), Serbia (6.60), Latvia (6.90), Greece (6.90). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 1.37, while the median country reports 7.40 mean rating, 0-10 scale against a mean of 7.29 mean rating, 0-10 scale.
Dispersion is narrow: the standard deviation across countries is 0.46 mean rating, 0-10 scale, giving a coefficient of variation of 6.3%. The mean sits below the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the lower tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2013 and 2025 the summed value across the 30 countries reporting in both periods moved by +5.8%. The largest relative increases are observed in Serbia (+32.0%), Bulgaria (+31.2%), Cyprus (+19.4%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Sweden (-6.3%), Germany (-4.1%), Denmark (-3.7%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Higher values are the policy-preferred direction for this indicator, so the countries listed at the bottom of the distribution mark the effective size of the European gap: closing it to the level of the fifth-ranked country would require the lowest performer to move by 2.00 mean rating, 0-10 scale. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset ilc_pw01 ('Overall life satisfaction by sex, age and educational attainment'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-06-08. Filter dimensions: statinfo=AVG; unit=RTG; isced11=TOTAL; life_sat=LIFE; sex=T; age=Y_GE16. Unit of measure: mean rating, 0-10 scale. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (30 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.