Money not enough, politics too much? Survey finds KLites still happy thanks to family

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 — For all the pressures of living at close quarters with each other and daily exposure to politicking, Malaysians in the capital city rate their happiness level pretty close to seven on a scale of 10, a recent local study showed.

The top contributor to their happiness was family, according to the UCSI Poll Research Centre which surveyed 1,051 city dwellers between August 1 and September 4 for its Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) project.

And of all the factors taken into account for the overall score of 6.92, the local private university pollster found the current political climate to make the least impact.

KLites rated family life at 7.15 out a scale of 10 as contributing to their overall happiness while politics contributed the lowest at 5.15.

Other factors that affected their happiness include physical health (6.50), mental health (6.46), workplace (6.15), community (6.05), financial stability (5.96), natural resources (5.88), and the nation as a whole (5.81).

“This survey shows that money is important, but it is not the most important factor.

“It is people’s family life, mental health, and workplace as shown in the GDH survey,” the centre’s chief executive Assistant Professor Noppadon Kannika said in an accompanying statement to the survey released today.

The pollster said women were slightly more than the men respondents at just over half or 50.8 per cent and 49.2 per cent respectively.

The pollster put its margin of error at plus-minus three per cent.

Noppadon said more research is required in order to compel Putrajaya into making changes in policies that would increase Malaysians’ GDH.

“While the action of government could directly affect the action of the public, thusly affecting the GDH level directly and indirectly, more research is needed before suggesting a policy memo to increase the GDH,” he said.