The world has become a significantly unhappier place in 2017. At last, wars, terrorist attacks and economic crises have caught up with the minds of the world’s population. However, while only 59% of participants of WIN’s worldwide End of Year Survey claim to be happy and just 40% of those polled believe that 2018 will be a better year than 2017, the mood in Germany has recovered slightly.

Compared to the previous year, Germany is looking at the new year much more optimistically than in 2016. Also, the opinion of the current economic situation has continued to improve in this country. This is proven by the results ascertained for the End of Year Survey by the WIN member Produkt + Markt in Germany.

Since 1977, WIN’s End of Year Survey has been annually assessing the outlook, expectations, views, and opinions of the world’s population on the upcoming year. For the 41st edition, 53,769 people were interviewed in 55 countries worldwide.

Results in a nutshell

Worldwide, economic optimism continues its downward trend, reaching a negative net value (-2) for the first time. Nevertheless, while net optimism in Germany is also negative at -5, the overall sentiment has picked up noticeably since 2016 (-24) and 2015 (-37).

Pessimistic outlooks on 2018 almost far and wide: Only a little under 40% of the polled global population feels that 2018 to be better than 2017, which is a decrease of -13 net points compared to the previous year. Although Germany scores below the global average with +12, it is also showing effective improvement on this issue compared to 2016 (+6) and 2015 (+2).

59% of respondents worldwide are happy – a decline of 10% compared to the previous year. With happiness at a net value of +38, Germany joins the global downward trend and drops below its value of 2015 (+39), just after its level of happiness had increased sharply in 2016 (+46).

Please see WIN’s official press release below for exact figures and a detailed summary of the international results, such as about the happiest and most optimistic countries in the world.