01.08.2018
Rating of happiness: August 2018
- According to a study conducted by the Rating Group, the greatest sources of joy in Ukrainians’ lives are family (74%), children (63%), and friends (49%). These three categories have consistently topped the “joy ranking” for the past ten years, the entire period during which the Sociological Group “Rating” has been monitoring this issue.
- Joy is also commonly associated with travel (30%), communicating with nature (30%), money (29%), music (27%), work (25%), pets (24%), and gifts (22%).
- Nearly one in five Ukrainians say they find joy in vacations or holidays, books, the internet, watching television, food, sex, as well as household chores and sports. One in six associate joy with cinema, birthdays, prayer, and shopping. Almost one in ten mention theatre, dancing, singing, victories of a favorite sports team, or simple solitude. Around 5% derive joy from education and alcohol, while 1–2% mention gambling and light drugs. Only 1% of Ukrainians state that nothing brings them joy in life.
- Over the past ten years, the sense of joy has increased the most in relation to family, children, friends, vacations and travel, pets, contact with nature, sports, sex, food, books, theatre, singing, and dancing.
- At the same time, during this decade there has been a significant decline in the number of respondents who say they find joy in watching television. It is worth noting that in 2009–2011, watching television consistently ranked among the top five sources of joy, whereas today it occupies a position in the middle of the second ten.
- Meanwhile, the proportion of respondents who associate joy with money, work, gifts, the internet, household chores, cinema, prayer, victories of a favorite team, and shopping has either increased only slightly or remained largely unchanged.
- An age-based analysis shows that older people experience relatively more joy primarily from watching television, household chores, and prayer. Pets, books, singing, and solitude also fall into categories where there is no pronounced age difference. Middle-aged respondents derive relatively more joy from children and work, while young people are more likely to associate joy with friends, money, music, food, sex, sports, cinema, shopping, dancing, and education.
- Clear gender differences in perceptions of joy were also recorded. Women, more often than men, derive joy from family, children, nature, gifts, books, shopping, dancing, singing, theatre, household work, prayer, and solitude. Men, in turn, more often associate joy with friends, work, food, the internet, sex, sports, cinema, victories of a favorite team, alcohol, and gambling.
- People with higher incomes tend to experience relatively more joy from almost all aspects of life, except watching television and household chores. At the same time, children bring joy equally to respondents regardless of income level.
Methodology
- Audience: residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older. The sample is representative by age, gender, region, and settlement type.
- Total sample: 2000 respondents.
- Personal formalized interview (face-to-face).
- The margin of error does not exceed 2,2%.
- Fieldwork dates: 10-15 July 2018
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