Uptick in happiness in May, as full time parents/ homemakers & females display major surge in happiness - Ipsos IndiaBus Happiness Monitor

The May wave of the Ipsos IndiaBus Happiness Monitor 2024 shows a slight uptick in happiness (of 1 percentage point) over the previous month, with at least 77% urban Indians claiming to be happy;  and with a major jump in happiness among full time parents/ homemakers (84%, +5%), and females (80%, +3%), maybe to do with much reprieve from morning drill of schools, with the onset of the summer vacation and the holiday season.

Interestingly, some cohorts were seen to be more happy: like those from north zone (86%), west zone (85%) and east zone (80%), tier 1 cities (88%), 45+ (80%) and from SEC A households (80%). While, largely across demographics over 70 per cent citizens were seen to be happy, the only exception continued to be the south zone with only 1 in 2 claiming to be happy (54%, -1%), and seeing a 1% dip over April. SEC C saw an increase in happiness of 5% points to 76%, while students (78%,+2), those with high education (78%, +2) and low education (77%, +1) also reported increase in happiness levels.   

How happy are Indians in their daily lives 

The survey also captured happiness across a host of parameters and interestingly for most of the parameters, citizens reported an increase in happiness over the previous month. Happiness was seen most around family (79%, +1%), followed by health (74%, =), friends’ circle (72%, +1%), employment (67%, -2%), colleagues (66%, +1%), economic conditions (64%, +3%), neighbours (64%, +4%) and situation in the country (63%, +1%) and situation in the world (58%, =).  

Summarizing on the findings of the survey, Parijat Chakraborty, Group Service Line Leader, Public Affairs, Corporate Reputation, CSR and ESG, said, "We see improvement in happiness scores across most demographics and parameters. Those from north, west and east zone are happier than their counterparts from south zone. Also, tier 1 residents are happiest, which could be because of the good quality of life – decent income with lower cost of living, as compared to the metros. Also homemakers/ full time parents have seen an uptick in happiness scores, maybe to do with the summer break for children and the holiday season. We see an interesting trend around economic conditions and work – while citizens claim to be happier around their economic conditions, at the same time happiness around work has seen a dip. Probably it reaffirms that money needs hard work to grow. There is stability seen around their views around the prevailing situation in the country and the situation in the world. The survey clearly shows that happiness is not just a feeling but impacted by different areas in one’s daily life. And any major alterations in the situations can upset the happiness apple cart."        

Methodology

Ipsos IndiaBus is a monthly, pan India omnibus (which also runs multiple client surveys), that uses a structured questionnaire and is conducted by Ipsos India on diverse topics among 2200+ respondents from SEC A, B and C households, covering adults of both genders from all four zones in the country. The survey is conducted in metros, tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 towns, providing a more robust and representative view of urban Indians. The respondents were polled face to face and online. There is city-level quota for each demographic segment that ensures the waves are identical with no additional sampling error. The data is weighted by demographics and city-class population to arrive at national average. Data collection is done every month, and the results are calculated on two-months’ rolling sample.