A lot of ink has been spilt and bandwidth used up on the notion of happiness these past weeks. Even Singapore's Parliament got into the act, debating the idea of a "Happiness Index".
Given that happiness is such an elusive concept, there's plenty of stuff out there about it -- from the philosophical to the downright silly. One can, for instance, make what one will about a recent survey on the issue by Grey Singapore, a marketing communications agency.
Lianhe Wanbao's take (24 Oct), as summarised in xinmsn's news website, is that Singaporean men are happier than the womenfolk:
The survey involved 102 females and 98 males (mostly citizens and some PRs) between the ages of 18 and 60, found that Singapore's men [in the age range polled, I should add... so I'm outside it, by one year!], tend to be happier than the women, especially in aspects like work satisfaction, and work-life balance.
It also found that, surprise, surprise, it is not the 5C's that make Singaporeans happy! The top five things that warm the cockles of the typical Singaporean heart are:
1. The country we live in, ie Singapore
2. Family ties
3. Religion
4. Network of social support
5. Personal time
The obvious next question is: What are the top five things that make Singaporeans unhappy? Here goes:
1. Savings (more precisely, the lack of it)
2. Expenditures
3. Lack of confidence about the economic future
4. Lack of work satisfaction
5. Lack of work-life balance.
One social worker, Ms Zhuo Jia Min, was interviewed by Lianhe Wanbao about the survey findings. She felt that the women take on more responsibilities than the men in a largely Chinese society like Singapore's.
"The men... [after they return home from work]... can read the papers or watch TV without needing to take care of the household chores. The women have to take care of others after work. They have to do the chores and [help] their kids do their homework," Ms Zhou said.
ST reported on the survey on 25 Oct. Since Lianhe Wanbao had already milked the "men are happier" angle, ST zeroed in on the baby boomers in the said age range as being the happiest in Singapore ("Baby boomers happiest of all: Poll", page B5).
The ST report added that young people aged 18 to 29 are the unhappiest.
ST's report on the scope of the survey, done in June, said: "[The respondents] were surveyed on their level of contentment across a range of issues such as confidence in the economy and job satisfaction." On the whole, some 52 per cent said they were happy; about 27 per cent were "neutral about their state of satisfaction" [whatever that means!]; and 22 per cent reported that they were unhappy.
The Grey survey, reportedly the first of its kind, will be an annual affair. So stay tuned next year for who will be Singapore's happiest and unhappiest folks!
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