Single female government employees in their 20s with college degrees are the most financially content people in Korea, according to a survey of 1,000 men and women over 20 across the country by the Hyundai Research Institute. The least content are divorced or widowed jobless men over 60 with a poor education.

The institute has compiled its "economic happiness" index twice a year since late 2007. The index "is computed based on a survey of respondents' age, marriage, gender, academic background, job, residential area, income, and assets," it said in a press release.

The Daejeon-South Chungcheong provincial area is the most financially content in the latest index for the first half of the year. By job, civil servants are the most content, followed by highly skilled professionals. The self-employed are least content.

People fare best in their 20s and get less content as time goes by. The richer and more educated, the more content people are. Singles are more content than married people.

Some 59.5 percent said economic growth has not made them more content, while 22.5 percent said they have grown less financially content as the economy grew. This means some 85 percent of respondents see no connection between the country's economic growth and their own financial well-being.