According to the 2022 Happiness Survey — conducted by HR firm, HappyPlus Consulting — people in Himachal Pradesh could be the happiest in India, while those living in Uttar Pradesh could be the saddest.
The report claims to have used the same parameters as UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network report and says India could not be a sad country as claimed by the latter and could be in fact, among the top 25 happiest countries. “While the UN report had a sample size of 3,000 people, our sample was seven times bigger,” says Ashish Ambasta, Founder-CEO of HappyPlus Consulting.
The States where happy people live
According to the report, the happiest States (and Union Territories) right now, apart from Himachal Pradesh are Punjab, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Tamil Nadu, in ascending order. Other States at the bottom of the table are Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Lakshadweep, and Jammu and Kashmir (in descending order). They are ranked on the bases of life ladder, positive and negative affect, social support, freedom of choice, generosity and perception of corruption. Other aspects like cost price index, state domestic product, literacy rate, life expectancy, poverty and health indices are also taken into account.
According to the report, Tamil Nadu (TN) scores the highest in freedom to make life choices (0.976 out of one), followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Ladakh, while people in Lakshadweep, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have scored the lowest (0.5378, 0.5785 and 0.6630 respectively). At the same time, TN has the lowest score in terms of generosity . The biggest gainer here is Uttarakhand with 0.7345 points.
The perception of corruption is also the highest in TN — 0.9089, while it is the lowest in Meghalaya (0.0671). Despite high perception of corruption, the survey shows that a majority of the respondents in Tamil Nadu said they have trust in institutions. Now, on the micro level of parameters, the survey says people in Kerala are the saddest, while the happiest are in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
World Happiness Report
The World Happiness Report, that ranked India the 136th out of 146 countries said the country’s happiness score was 3.777. However, HappyPlus’ report gave India a score of 6.84. “ Life satisfaction dips as people move from below 18 years of age to the 18- 25 years age bucket. However, life satisfaction keeps rising, showing that as people get older, they have better life satisfaction. Above 60 years age group has the highest satisfaction,” the report says.