Published On: Fri, Feb 5th, 2016

Hindus are the Happiest among all People; Atheists Unhappiest: New UK Govt. Study

ons_happiness_surveyOf all the faiths in the UK, Hindus are the happiest, scoring well above the national average, according to data compiled by the Office for National Statistics over the last 4 years in the UK and published a couple of days ago. Religious people from all different faiths are happier than those who have “no religion”, official data released on Tuesday revealed.

From: The Huffington Post, 2 Feb 2016

Christians – of all denominations – were the second happiest, followed by Sikhs and Buddhists. Those who followed these religions were happier than the average person, who scored a happiness rating of 7.38 out of 10. On average, Hindus scored a rating of 7.57 for happiness, followed by Christians at 7.47, Sikhs with 7.45 and Buddhist at 7.41.Happiness amongst Jews fell below the national average, with a rating of 7.37.

  • Muslims had the lowest happiness ranking of the religions listed, with a score of 7.33.
  • Those who follow “any other religion” came in at 7.26.
  • And people who belonged to “no religion” were the unhappiest, scoring just 7.22.

Hindus_Celebrating_Diwali

Happiness_rating_by_religious_affiliationThe ONS report analysed personal well-being data for more than 300,000 adults in the UK. The samples were collected over three years, between 2012 and 2015.

Four areas of a person’s well-being were assessed.

In addition to “happiness”, “life satisfaction”, “worthwhile” and “anxiety” were also ranked. The average measure nationally for “life satisfaction” was 7.5. For “feeling that what you do in life is worthwhile”, the average was 7.8 and for “anxiety” it was 2.9.