Poll: Europe and North America 'thriving'

WASHINGTON, April 19 (UPI) -- Residents of North America and Europe rate their lives a lot better than their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa, a Gallup poll indicated Tuesday.

The Gallup organization's 2010 survey of Global Wellbeing indicated that a median of 21 percent of the population in 124 countries rated their current and future lives as "thriving."

Denmark, Sweden and Canada led the list of 19 countries with 69 percent of respondents reporting they were "thriving."

In the United States, 59 percent selected "thriving" over the other two categories, "struggling" and "suffering."

At the other end of the spectrum, only 1 percent of those surveyed in Chad reported they were "thriving."

The median for sub-Saharan Africa was only 8 percent compared to a median of 20 percent for the Middle East and North Africa.

In Asia, where a median of 17 percent said they were "thriving," there were large gaps between developed and developing Asian countries. Thriving was higher than 60 percent in Australia and New Zealand and as low as 3 percent in Tajikistan and Cambodia.

Gallup conducted the survey by face-to-face and telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, in 124 countries last year. The margin of error ranged from plus or minus 1.7 percentage points to plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.