JOY RATING

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17.11.2009

JOY RATING

Some skeptics today claim that there is no joy or happiness in our lives because of the crisis, the epidemic, and other hardships. The sociological group Rating Group disagreed with this view and decided to compile and present a special Joy Rating based on data from a nationwide survey. The team also had its own reason to celebrate, as this was their 500th survey, which they wished to share with the public.
Almost 70% of Ukrainians consider themselves happy, including 27.1% who say they are definitely happy and 42.5% who say they are probably happy. Nearly 20% consider themselves unhappy, while about 10% were unable to say whether they are happy or not. In terms of how often people feel joy, 28.5% of respondents say they experience joy every day, 24.4% several times a week, and 13.6% several times a month. In total, about two thirds experience joy at least once a month. About 20% say they rarely feel joy in life, and 12% were undecided.
The survey shows a strong link between happiness and joy: the happiest Ukrainians feel joy every day. In the West, 40% of residents say they feel joy daily, the highest share among regions, while in Donbas this figure does not exceed 20%, and in the Center it is only 13%. Joy declines with age: nearly half of respondents aged 18–29 feel joy every day, while among those aged 50 and over, especially pensioners, only about 20% do so. At the same time, the share of those who rarely feel joy increases from 9% among those aged 18–39 to 35% among those aged 60 and older.
Education also matters: the lower the level of education, the less joy people report. Married respondents feel joy less often than those who are unmarried or living in a civil partnership. The greatest sources of joy for Ukrainians are family, mentioned by more than 60%, followed by children at 47% and friends at 37%. Completing the top five are watching television at 32% and money at 27%. Almost 20% enjoy nature, and one in six Ukrainians finds joy in travel. Ukrainians enjoy receiving gifts more than giving them, and vacations and holidays more than work or study. For 13% household chores bring joy, and for 10% pets do so. Among the arts, music brings joy to 16% and cinema to 14%, while theater brings joy to only 2%. Books bring joy to 12% of Ukrainians. One in ten finds joy in food, and one in ten in sex, which ranks higher than prayer, shopping, sports, cheering for a favorite team, singing, or alcohol.
As people age, enjoyment from friends, music, vacations, travel, cinema, birthdays, sex, shopping, sports, the internet, dancing, studying, and money declines. As family and children appear, some pleasures become less relevant or inaccessible, while others grow in importance. The joys that become more important with age include family, children, watching television, being in nature, household chores, books, pets, prayer, singing, and solitude. Enjoyment from work remains stable and even increases in middle age, as do food and alcohol. Attitudes toward gifts remain largely unchanged over time.
The more children people have, the more joy they derive from them: only 8% of childless respondents find joy in children, compared to 53% of those with at least one child and 74% of those with four or more. Among unmarried respondents and those in civil partnerships, fewer than 40% derive joy from family, while 70% of married respondents name family as a key source of joy. Prayer brings the most joy to believers of the UAOC and Greek Catholics, and the least to followers of the UOC of the Kyiv and Moscow Patriarchates. In the West, one in five respondents finds joy in prayer, compared to about 4% in the South and Donbas and only 3% in the North.
Men more often than women derive joy from friends, television, the internet, vacations, work, sports, victories of their favorite teams, alcohol, and money. Men also enjoy sex about twice as much as women, while women enjoy shopping about three times more than men. Women’s joy rankings also include family, children, household chores, books, pets, and prayer. Women enjoy gifts more than men, both receiving and giving them. However, both men and women enjoy nature, music, travel, cinema, food, and dancing to similar degrees.
The higher the level of education, the more joy respondents derive from music, theater, books, travel, work, sex, shopping, the internet, and learning, while the opposite is true for prayer. Analysis shows that people who enjoy family also enjoy children, gift giving, household chores, pets, and prayer. Friends are associated with the internet, sports, alcohol, birthdays, music, and learning. Television is linked with alcohol, food, cinema, and receiving gifts. Money is associated with sex and shopping. Nature is linked to solitude, theater, household chores, dancing, and church. Music is associated with learning, theater, cinema, dancing, the internet, and birthdays. Books are linked to solitude, theater, cinema, and learning. Sex is associated with dancing, sports, the internet, birthdays, and learning.
According to the survey, 3% of respondents have sex every day, 20% several times a week, and 13% several times a month. Nineteen percent say they do not have sex at all, and 33% refused to answer. This means that only 36% of Ukrainians aged 18 and over, and 54% among those aged 18–49, say they are sexually active. The study also shows that sex increases joy: the more frequently people have sex, the more often they feel joy, with several times a week being optimal. Sexual activity is highest in the South, Donbas, and the East, and lowest in the West and Center. Men are one and a half times more sexually active than women, with the most active age group being 23–37. The most regular sexual activity is found among couples in civil partnerships, especially those without children.
Summing up, Rating Group encourages everyone to change the statistics by rediscovering sources of joy across generations.

Methodology

Fieldwork dates: 3–12 October 2009.
Sample size: 2,000 respondents.
Age: 18+.
Methodology: face-to-face standardized interviews.
Margin of error: for values close to 50% — no more than 3%; close to 30% — no more than 2.6%; close to 10% — no more than 1.8%.
Regional breakdown:
- West — Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi;
- Center — Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy;
- North — Kyiv city, Kyiv oblast, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv;
- South — AR Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol; East — Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv;
- Donbas — Donetsk and Luhansk.