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A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students

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Abstract

Happiness is considered to be one of the ultimate goals of life. This paper studies the happiness of Indian college and university students aged between 18 and 24 years. It attempts to answer whether and to what extent happiness of a student is significantly related to aspects of social life such as time spent with family, friends, being in a relationship, logging into social networking sites; academic factors such as job prospects of the chosen field of study and academic environment; and other personal factors such as health condition, over thinking or dwelling on past bad memories, addiction to tobacco/drug/alcohol. Moreover, this paper also inquires about the relationship between a student’s average happiness with her gender as well as the income class to which she belongs. It has been observed that among different aspects of social life, time spent with family and friends are significant while logging into social networking site is found out to be insignificant. Also being in a relationship is significantly but negatively related to happiness for male students. Job Prospects of the current field of study is a highly significant covariate of happiness irrespective of the gender of the student. Among different aspects of the personal situation, dwelling on past bad memories decreases happiness of both male and female students. Addiction to tobacco/alcohol is a negative covariate of female happiness. Furthermore, income and gender are seen to play an insignificant role in the happiness of Indian college and university students.

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Notes

  1. Source: NDTV, June 22, 2012.

  2. Questionnaire is given in Appendix A.1.

  3. Our model specification is correct. Please see Appendix A.3.

  4. Please see Appendix A.2.

  5. Please see the questionnaire (Appendix A.1).

  6. See Appendix A.2.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. We are also thankful to Anamika Sen, Isha Mallik, Sayantan Baidya, and Esha Dwibedi for their valuable suggestions and contribution in the data collection.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jadavpur University, 188, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick Road, Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Bidisha Chakraborty, Souparna Maji, Sayantan Baidya & Esha Dwibedi

  2. Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Anamika Sen & Isha Mallik

Authors
  1. Bidisha Chakraborty
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  2. Souparna Maji
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  3. Anamika Sen
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  4. Isha Mallik
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  5. Sayantan Baidya
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  6. Esha Dwibedi
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bidisha Chakraborty or Souparna Maji.

Appendices

Appendix A.1

figure a

Appendix A.2

Overview of the sample

 

Below Rs. 10,000

Rs. 10,000 Rs. 25,000

Rs. 25,000 Rs. 50,000

Rs. 50,000–Rs. 1,00,000

Above Rs. 1,00,000

Mean overall happiness

16.58,333

16.61667

16.6729

16.84286

17.23016

Standard deviation

3.396745

4.528971

4.131736

3.93887

4.12051

 

All

Male

Female

Mean overall happiness

16.85301

17.1048

16.59091

Standard deviation

4.095484

3.809893

4.366321

Appendix A.3

Breusch-Pagan/Cook-Weisberg test for heteroskedasticity

Ho: Constant variance | Variables: Fitted values of overall happiness

 

Overall sample regression

Male sample regression

Female sample regression

Chi square value

0.03

0.07

0.02

Prob > Chi square

0.8676

0.7892

0.8772

Ramsey RESET test using powers of the fitted values of overall happiness

Ho: Model has no omitted variables

 

Overall sample regression

Male sample regression

Female sample regression

F Value

0.62

0.16

0.92

Prob > F

0.6028

0.9202

0.433

Homoscedasticity holds and model specifications are correct for three OLS regression equations.

Appendix A.4

Test of significance of difference between mean happiness of students across income classes: (at 1% level of significance)

Mean level of happiness of a student belonging to

Hypotheses

Decision

Significant level of difference in the mean level of happiness across income classes

Below Rs. 10,000 (Ma) and Rs. 10,000–Rs. 25,000 (Mb)

H0:Ma = Mb

Ha:Ma < Mb

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Below Rs. 10,000 (Ma) and Rs. 25,000–Rs. 50,000 (Mc)

H0:Ma = Mc

Ha:Ma < Mc

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Below Rs. 10,000 (Ma) and Rs. 50,000–Rs. 1,00,000 (Md)

H0:Ma = Md

Ha:Ma < Md

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Below Rs. 10,000 (Ma) and above Rs. 1,00,000 (Me)

H0:Ma = Me

Ha:Ma < Me

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Rs. 10,000–Rs. 25,000 (Mb) and Rs. 25,000–Rs. 50,000 (Mc)

H0:Mb = Mc

Ha:Mb < Mc

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Rs. 25,000–Rs. 50,000 (Mc) and Rs. 50,000–Rs. 1,00,000 (Md)

H0:Mc = Md

Ha:Mc < Md

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Rs. 50,000–Rs. 1,00,000 (Md) and above Rs. 1,00,000 (Me)

H0:Md = Me

Ha:Md < Me

We fail to reject the null hypothesis

NO

Appendix A.5

Test of significance of difference between mean happiness of male students and that of female students: (at 1% level of significance)

Hypotheses:

Null hypothesis: H0:Mm = Mf

Against alternative hypothesis: Ha:Mm > Mf

Here, Mm represents the mean level of happiness for males and Mf represents the mean level of happiness for females.

Variable

Number of observations

Mean of overall happiness

Sum of squares

Male

229

17.1048 = Xm

14.51528 = S 2m

Female

220

16.59091 = Xf

19.06476 = S 2f

Our alternative hypothesis implies that this is a one tailed test. At 1% level of significance, the critical region is Zcritical ≥ 2.33. The value of test statistic (Zobserved = 1.379359) does not lie in the critical region. As a result, we fail to reject the null hypothesis at 1% level of significance.

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Chakraborty, B., Maji, S., Sen, A. et al. A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students. J. Quant. Econ. 17, 215–236 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40953-018-0125-8

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