3 in 4 Indians polled claim to be happy: Ipsos IndiaBus Happiness Monitor

How happy are Indians? And how happy are Indians about their various aspects of life?

Ipsos IndiaBus Happiness Monitor conducted  over 5 months and 5 waves shows almost 3 in 4 citizens (73%) claim to be happy in April 2023 and happiness levels have more or less stayed steady, with minor uptick or downtick over the last 5 months. Ergo, Indians are a happy bunch of people.

Interestingly, happiness is not just a state of mind. It is tangible and various aspects of life are the contributing factors.

For instance, Indians claim to be most happy about their family (74%), friends’ circle (65%), health (64%) and neighbours (57%). Comparatively lower happiness levels were seen towards  economic/ financial condition (53%), situation of country (50%) and situation of the world (45%).      

“Post pandemic the hierarchy of happiness inducing priorities have undergone a bit of a rejig. Happiness is anchored around family, good health and a circle of friends, and these are the most happiness inducing factors. Financial conditions, country’s affairs and global matters come below in their priorities, though they also contribute to happiness. Man cannot be an island. All these factors impact how blissful citizens feel. To cite an example, war in Ukraine is impacting global economies, but citizens in India do not see direct harm coming to them given the distance between India and Ukraine. So, happiness levels are down but not hitting the bottom levels, for situation of the world,” says Parijat Chakraborty, Group Service Line Leader, Public Affairs & Corporate Reputation, Ipsos India.

“Friends and neighbours have been upping the happiness quotient as citizens are going out more often socially and meeting friends and relatives for get togethers, with the pandemic behind us, and interacting with their neighbours more. Some societies also have community get togethers which has been breaking the ice,” added Chakraborty.    

Those employed mentioned their work made them happy (62%) and so did their colleagues and associates (61%).

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, tier1, 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. We have city-level quota for each demographic segments that ensure the waves are identical and no additional sampling error. The data is weighted by demographics and city-class population to arrive at national average. Happiness is measured across several attributes of overall happiness, health, Economic or financial condition, family, friend circle, neighbours, situation of country, situation of world, Colleagues/Business associates and Employment or work. The respondents are asked to rate their happiness on a scale of 1 to 10 on pre-defined list of attributes. For arriving of Happiness index, two waves rolling data were used. Rolling data is calculated as an average of 2 months data point. Field work was conducted on:

For November’22 wave: October 21 to November 4, 2022

For December’22 wave: November 25 to December 9, 2022

For January’23 wave: December’22 to January 6, 2023

For February’23 wave: January 20 to February 3, 2023

For March’23 wave: February 17 to March 3, 2023

For April’23 wave: March 24 to April 7, 2023