God and money -- they make you happier Alfian, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta It turns out that the old saying "money can't buy you happiness" isn't quite true. But it also helps if you live in Semarang and are religious. Residents of the Central Java capital city are apparently the most cheerful in Indonesia. "Although the economy in Semarang is not as good as it is in Jakarta, people there tend to be more accepting," said Handi Irawan, chairman of Frontier Consulting Group, a marketing research and consultant company. Unsurprisingly, the rich are also happier than the poor in general. Men are also more likely to be cheerful than women, the religious are more light of heart than atheists and agnostics, and while everyone claims the teenage years are the best, it now seems that those between 41 and 50 are actually the most enjoyable. "Life indeed begins at 40," said Handi during the announcement of the results of the study on Thursday. The Frontier survey, conducted in June 2007, spoke to 1,800 respondents in Jakarta, Medan, Bandung, Surabaya, Semarang and Makassar. "Our survey shows that the person with the highest social economic status and the highest religious level has the highest index of happiness," Handi said. Respondents with a monthly income of more than Rp 3.5 million were found to have the highest index of happiness at 51.48; those with incomes from Rp 2 million to Rp. 3.5 million had an index of 49.93. Those with the lowest socio-economic status, with an income of less than Rp 750,000, only had an index of 42.70. A similar trend was seen when religious belief was measured. "So work hard and be religious," Handi said. "This kind of person has the biggest opportunity to be happy." The index was measured using three variables, the first being the "hedonic level of affect" which measured respondents' perceptions of how well they enjoy life. The respondent was given 10 questions asking them about positive and negative feelings they had experienced in the last month. The other variables are indicators measuring to what extent the respondents feel successful in achieving long term and short term goals. The most influential variable is a person's perception of their long term achievements, Handi said. Compared to residents of other countries, Frontier also revealed that Indonesians are relative unhappy -- with an average index of 47.96 within a scale of 1 to 100. However, according to Handi, the index is still higher than those in Singapore, Japan, the United States of America, and Germany. http://www.thejakartapost.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]&irec=1 _________________________________________________________________ Help yourself to FREE treats served up daily at the Messenger Café. Stop by today. http://www.cafemessenger.com/info/info_sweetstuff2.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_OctWLtagline
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