Hong Kong - Wealthy people might be wearing long faces but poor people appear to be happier as the world economy goes into meltdown, a Hong Kong survey found Friday.

In what may be a case of schadenfreude - delighting in the misfortune of others - researchers found that while the middle-classes get maudlin in a downturn, the spirits of the poor prosper.

Using a so-called happiness index, they recorded a 4.8 per cent increase in happiness last month compared to October 2007 among Hong Kong people earning less than 1,100 US dollars a month.

By contrast, people higher up the earnings scale with pay of around 3,000 US dollars a month were 3 per cent less happy than last year, however, the team from Lingnan University in Hong Kong found.

Part of the reason poor people smile in a slump while the wealthy grimace may be that they have less to lose and are unlikely to have to fret too much over stocks and shares, researchers believe.

The director of the university's Public Policy Studies Centre Ho Lok-sang said poor people in Hong Kong appeared to be cheered by financial concessions announced earlier this year by the government.

While wealthy people fret over dwindling portfolios, Hong Kong's poor were still upbeat about public housing rent reductions and increased benefit payments for the less well-off, Ho said.

More than 800 people in the former British colony, notorious for its sky-high cost of living and its gaping rich-poor divide, were interviewed for the annual survey by the university. (dpa)