More than 90 per cent of women and men who participated in the inaugural Fiji Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2021 said they were very or somewhat happy.

More than 5000 women and 2530 men aged 15 to 49 years participated in the survey conducted by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Health Ministry and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) from March to April last year.

According to the survey results, 90.4 per cent of women in the urban areas and 90.1 per cent in rural areas said they very or somewhat happy.

For men, 90.2 per cent in urban areas and 94.6 per cent in rural areas said they were very or somewhat happy.

The survey also asked Fijians questions about whether their lives had improved in the past year and whether they expected their lives to get better in the next year.

In response to this, 75.9 per cent women said their lives had improved in the last one year and 92.7 per cent said it would get better in the next year.

In comparison, 60.1 per cent of men said their lives improved during the past one year and 85.9 per cent said they expected it would get better after one year.

“That, I think, is one of the greatest news that we have,” said Economy Ministry permanent secretary Shiri Gounder at the launch of the survey in Suva yesterday.

“So Fiji is a happy country — 90 per cent surveyed said they were happy — and we are also a very positive country. “More than two-thirds of the surveyed said that they expected their lives to improve in the next 12 months.”