1 Happiness, Meaning of Life and Income

The paper explores the non-material determinants of happiness. We go beyond the well-established result that individual ‘religiousness ’ is positively correlated with happiness and look at a broader spiritual activity- time spent thinking about the meaning and purpose of life (MPL). We study the determinants of this activity and its potential role in explaining happiness. Using World Values Survey 1994-2007 data for 85 countries in an ordered logit model, we find that the educated, the religious, females and the middle aged are more likely to spend time thinking about the MPL. The correlation between happiness and thinking about the MPL depends on a country’s income: it is negative in high income countries and positive in low income countries. Key-words: Happiness, life satisfaction, meaning of life, religion