ASIA-PACIFIC – OCTOBER 2011 – Grey Singapore, one of Singapore’s leading integrated marketing communications agencies, launched the findings of their research study, The Happiness Report. Focusing on the happiness quotient of Singaporeans, the study offers a revealing look at a range of issues that makes them happy.
The findings revealed that personal savings was an issue that Singaporeans were the least happy about. A majority of 46.5 percent reported that their lack of sufficient savings in the last six months, a worrisome trend.
While the overall unhappiness sentiment on confidence in the economy was 27 percent, this number is expected to rise in view of stagnant wages, inflation and higher costs of living following an economic recession in the coming months and into 2012.
Job dissatisfaction and lack of work-life balance came in at fourth and fifth places respectively at 23 percent and 21 percent on the overall unhappiness rankings. The study unveiled that men were happier than women at the workplace. Females were found to be less happy than males in terms of personal time, work-life balance and job satisfaction. While 19.39 percent of women said they were unhappy over their lack of personal time, the figure was only 11.76 percent for men. In conclusion, we see Singaporean women struggle to balance their social responsibilities and professional roles in the modern Singapore family landscape.
The report also examined the top five things that Singaporeans were most happy about. Area of residence topped the happiness index with approximately 78 percent ranking Singapore to be the best in the world reflecting a sense of pride in their residence. Close family ties ranked second on the happiness scale while spirituality, social support networks and personal time came in at third, fourth and fifth places respectively. 86 percent of young adults reported being happy with the closeness they felt with their family which was the highest compared to the other age categories.
The study discovered that the happiest people in Singapore were the baby boomers. Their overall net happiness score was 11.4 percent, 4.6 percentage points higher than the young adult segment which made them the least happiest people. The middle age category was found to be the stressed and sandwiched class.
Grey Singapore commissioned the research as part of its Grey Sentiment initiative to gather market intelligence to increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. “We place great importance on understanding the local consumer mindset. Good knowledge of the local market is crucial in creating a campaign that connects with the target audience.” said Subbaraju Alluri, CEO, Grey Group Singapore. “We hope that the series of Grey Sentiment studies will prove to be an invaluable tool for all marketers to increase the effectiveness of their strategies”.
The research study, designed to monitor current sentiments amongst Singaporeans, was conducted in June this year. 200 respondents between the ages 18 to over 60, representative of the local population on age, gender and race, participated in the study. They were surveyed on their level of contentment on a wide range of issues such as confidence in the economy, job satisfaction, work-life balance, savings and family ties amongst others.
