Mumbai: 20 March marks the UN’s International Day of Happiness with the theme of 2024 being “Reconnecting for Happiness: Building Resilient Communities.” It’s also the day when Ipsos, a global market research company releases its Ipsos India annual Happiness Report which deep dives into 12 months of a rigorous study to emerge with the true indicators of happiness for 2023.
Overall, in Circa 2023, 72 per cent per cent Indians claimed to be happy. While the Indians are most happy with family (73 per cent), deeper analyses reveal that personal finance and health are the top influencers of our happiness.
Ipsos experts ran a regression analysis on the 12 months of happiness data and the derived analysis provided a more nuanced view about what influences happiness and what contributes to happiness. The analysis further revealed that health and personal finances were the biggest influencers to Happiness for Indians. Family, which we are most happy about, was placed third in the pecking order of the importance hierarchy - far lower in influence as compared to health and personal finances.
The analysis also revealed, Indians have higher expectations on the financial front. So, while it was an important influencer, the current happiness score of personal finances was much lower, at 55 per cent.
Interestingly, on the professional front, work and career was seen to play a more significant role in terms of how it affects their finances. The actual work and colleagues had lesser impact on overall happiness.
“Indians are happy in their own ‘personal bubble’. Their attention is more inward-driven, rather than the external situation of the country and the world. The report captured variations across life stage, location and gender of the individual. For instance, for men, health and personal finances were equal influencers, while for women, health was clearly ahead as a driver to be happy. For those living in metros, health was a bigger influencer than for those in non-metros. An age-wise analysis also revealed the shift in what makes individuals happy – health overtakes finances for those older than 46 years, as compared to the younger generation (where both health and personal finances were equally important),” stated Ipsos India group service line leader, public affairs, corporate reputation, ESG & CSR Parijat Chakraborty.
The report, first of its kind in India, is based on the twelve-month data for 2023 from the Ipsos IndiaBus monthly Happiness Monitor. Ipsos IndiaBus is an urban India omnibus, fielded among 2200+ respondents per month from NCCS A, B, and C households, covering adult males/ females across all four zones in the country. The survey is conducted across 16 cities - a mix of metros, tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 towns, providing a robust and representative view of urban Indians.
Access full report here:
