Debra Li

debra_lidan@163.com

HAPPINESS is something that everyone is after. Then again, it’s so elusive and its ingredients vary so drastically for everyone.

A recent study jointly carried out by Just So Soul Institute (affiliated with the social networking app Soul) and Oh! Youth Institute (affiliated with 36kr.com) shattered a few myths and shed light on some interesting facts about what makes China’s young people happy.

Contrary to the common belief that young people would prefer spending time with their love interests to fun activities with friends, the study finds that both men and women are happier in the company of their friends than by the side of their lover. Even more surprising, both men and women choose chatting with a kindred-spirited stranger over spending time with their love interest, although women value solitude more than men.

Compared with relationships, friendships are often simpler and less stressful. Also, when meeting up with friends, fun activities are usually on the agenda. On the flip side, being with partners often involves chores and other fun-sapping tasks. People do also socialize, relax and dine out with their romantic partners, but they do far more chores and housework with their partners than with their pals.

The two institutes polled 1,473 young Chinese people for their study, 51% of whom were male and 49% were female. About 37% of the polled were aged 18-25, 47% were between 26 and 35, and 16% were between 36 and 44.

When asked to rate their happiness on a scale of 0-100, more than 60% give themselves a score above 60, with 11% giving themselves a whopping high score above 90. In general, women are a little bit happier than men; and the age group of 31 to 35-year-olds are at their happiest. The poll finds that those aged 18-25 are significantly less happy than those senior to them.

On the one hand, an uncertainty related to their future career and relationship might have caused stress for this younger group; on the other, these people, many growing up in affluence in Chinese cities, have higher demands for both material and spiritual satisfaction and value freedom and individualism more than earlier generations, which could make them more difficult to please.

While there have been plenty of Chinese media reports on how today’s young are making every possible effort to secure a job “within the system,” that is, become a civil servant or teacher in a public school, the poll finds out that young people are happiest when they are the boss of their own company. Those in show biz, art and media come second in their self-rated scores of happiness; civil servants and teachers come third.

The least happy job is being a housewife or househusband; this is only a bit worse than being a student. A production line worker’s job rounds out the least happy three.

This also sheds light on how much we owe our partners if he or she is taking good care of the family and doing all the household chores. Working on a 7/24 schedule without being paid, housewives and househusbands have too often been taken for granted and their contributions to the family have often gone unnoticed.

The poll also offers interesting insights into young people’s fantasies about life.

The No. 1 dream job for those polled is being a small shopkeeper, with women preferring a florist boutique and men preferring running a bar. Women also fancy opening a bookstore or dessert shop, while men would like to own a café or drugstore for a change.

Other dream jobs for the young are a freelancing job, a startup entrepreneur, a civil servant, and rounding out the top five is a gig in show biz.

Some of the findings are easily understood; for one thing, the level of happiness increase with people’s monthly income, with the only exception of those earning between 3,001-5,000 yuan (US$420-700) being a tad less happy than those earning under 3,000 yuan, perhaps because the latter group consists of entry-level employees who naturally have lower expectations.

For women, things like having a satisfactory amount of savings, being allowed to do things at their own pace and pursuing their passions give them the biggest happiness; while men take most joy out of sports, being around their family and long vacations.

An analysis from the statistics collected from people’s posts (9.6 million in total) on the Soul app also reveals that fine food contributes heavily to the happiness of both men and women, with men rating seafood, barbecue, coffee, beer and grapes as their favorite foods and women choosing milk tea, hotpot, crawfish, luoshi noodles and strawberries as their favorites.