The UK is now the worst place to live in Europe for quality of life and overall wellbeing, according to research by comparison site uSwitch.com. The high cost of living and work-driven culture means that Britain now sits at the bottom of a Quality of Life index. Ireland doesn’t come far behind in second place.
The UK has the fourth largest income in Europe, but enjoyment of this is cancelled out by the conditions endured in order to receive it. Those in the UK have the lowest holiday entitlement in Europe, long working hours and one of the highest retirement ages.
The cost of living also weighs down heavily; food and diesel prices are the highest in Europe, while petrol, alcohol and cigarettes all cost more than the European average.
The research also looked at lifestyle factors, such as life expectancy as well as hours of sunshine to determine the Britain with the overall poorest quality of life.
In contrast, France and Spain come up trumps for living standards. The Spanish have a life expectancy of a year longer than people in the UK and receive the highest number of holiday days in Europe. Spain also revels in the most hours of sunshine in Europe.
The depressing conditions in Britain mean that only 5% of people are happy living in the country and more than one in ten are now seriously considering emigrating. The broken society was cited by respondents as the worst thing about living in the UK, closely followed by the cost of living and crime and violence.
Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com says: ”When coupled with many of the issues facing households in the UK today it's not surprising that one in ten of us (12%) have contemplated starting a new life abroad. But for those of us who decide to stick it out and ride the storm, there will be no choice but to batten down the hatches.
She adds: Cutting back where possible to help combat our high living costs will go some way to improving our quality of life. This may be the only way to steer through these turbulent times until we reach a point where we can start to see our quality of life improve”.
Top Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesThere are lies, damned lies and statistics
Oct 01st, 2011 - 05:52 am 0Hell, any survey that uses sunshine as an indicator is going to put the UK at the bottom.
Maybe we should all be living in Greece ....... but then again !
ha ha ha, what did I typed here many times?
Oct 01st, 2011 - 06:29 am 0The UK is a dump in Europe. It's a silly socialist island, backwards and it's full with ugly people with bad teeth. It's also full of blowhards, great example are the clowns that type here there silly comments and who never traveled outside their island, and won't ever do that, because they can't.
Oh dear , the clogwog parroting on about teeth again..... it must have been hard losing your plump little dutch girlfriend to the tall handsome englishman and then getting a nasty disease off that toothless hag in Bootle...... never mind ... time to move on.....
Oct 01st, 2011 - 07:31 am 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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