By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

The more Koreans earn, the more they feel secure and happy, research from a state-run think tank to create a ``Korean Happiness Index'' showed Wednesday.

Women who are married, well educated and have a higher income are more inclined to be satisfied with their lives said Dr. Kim Seung-kwon of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, who was in charge of the project.

In his survey of 2,000 people over 20 years old to determine well-being, people with a monthly household income of more than five million won scored the highest, at 7.3 out of 10, as opposed to those with less than one million won who scored 6.25.

People with spouses scored 6.83, while singles scored 6.74. Those with histories of divorce, separation or the death of a spouse scored 5.95.

Women were generally more content. Other than their satisfaction with marriage and self-esteem, women rated higher on the index than men. People living in urban areas with more education tended to be happier than those in rural areas who were less educated.

Kim said the results were significant because the index is the first to be developed by Koreans for Koreans. ``Koreans normally marked lower in indices developed by Westerners due to different values,'' he said. In separate surveys conducted by the New Economic Foundation (NEF) and University of Leicester in 2006, Korea marked 102nd. In the NEF study, the small island of Vanuatu ranked first, while Denmark took the lead in the latter. ``However, Koreans' well-being level marked an average of 6.7 out of 10. I wouldn't say Koreans are happy, but they are surely headed for happiness,'' he said.

Kim has developed 21 criteria for measuring happiness by surveying 189 social experts and 133 ordinary citizens.

Marital status, healthy exercise, family health, self-esteem, self-respect and other factors turned out to be major factors affecting Koreans' happiness.

``We found that Koreans value family life and health more than others. It was really all about the family,'' Kim said.

Complete survey results are slated for release next week.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr