PARIS: A happy family life easily tops the list of personal values cherished in Europe, ahead of work, friendships, leisure or religion, while politics hardly shows up on their radar screens, according to a recent survey.

The European Values Survey, which has tracked personal concerns in western Europe for over two decades, said 86 per cent of those surveyed named “family” as an important priority in their lives. Only eight per cent cited politics.

Work came in second at 54 per cent and friendships third at 47, according to the results just published in the July-August edition of the French journal Futuribles.

“Almost all people value the family highly, even if they have very different views about the right family model,” the survey said. “Expectations about the family seem to be on the rise, especially in Portugal, Germany and France.”

“Politics is not a priority value in any European country.”

“Work as a value has retreated markedly in Ireland, Britain, Denmark and Sweden but gone up in Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany,” it noted.

Despite shorter working hours and more frequent holiday travel across Europe, leisure ranked fourth at only 37 per cent. Religion placed fifth at 17 per cent.

The survey, which began interviewing at least 1,000 people for each European country polled in 1999, showed that Europeans place more importance on family and friends than they did a decade earlier.

Both categories were four percentage points lower in 1990.

By contrast, religion fell by three points over the decade, reflecting the continued turn away from organized faith, it said.—Reuters