Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the first-ever MHI 2021 found that most Malaysians are satisfied with their lives, following a nationwide survey conducted by the department.
The survey ran between September and November last year encompassing 42,446 respondents from all walks of life nationwide, reported the news site Malay Mail.
It has 73 indicators covered under the 13 components of MHI, namely family, housing and environment, social participation, health, communication facilities, education, working life, income, public safety, time use, religion and spiritual, culture and emotional experience.
Categorisation was based on a score of one to 10 from very unhappy to very happy to indicate how satisfied respondents are, whereby a score above 6.01 means they are happy.
Overall, all the 13 components were at a happy level with scores ranging from 6.04 to 7.23. Analysis by gender showed that females (6.49) recorded a higher score than males (6.46).
Mohd Uzir said Malaysian and foreign respondents' scores did not differ much, at 6.49 and 6.32 respectively.
