Economists liken cost of happy family life to £85,000 annual pay hike!

Economists in the UK have taken a go at measuring the value of something that is in fact priceless for most people - a happy family life, and a great set of friends.

London, May 1 : Economists in the UK have taken a go at measuring the value of something that is in fact priceless for most people - a happy family life, and a great set of friends.

And, after all their efforts, they have managed to calculate, in monetary terms, exactly how valuable strong relationships can be.

The study, published in the Journal of Socio-Economics, took information from 8,000 households across England.

As a part of the study, volunteers were asked to rate how much certain changes in their life would effect their level of happiness.

The changes ranged from pay increases to one-on-one time with kith and kin.

The economists, from the University of London's Institute of Education which carried out the research, found that seeing loved ones every day was worth as much as getting an 85,000 pound pay rise every year.

If you like your neighbours, then even chatting with them will frequently make you as happy as if you had been handed a 37,000 pounds increase, the researchers found.

The economists also added that whoever said 'Money can't buy happiness', happens to be a very wise person, for actual changes in income don't make a very big difference in how happy you are.

"An increase in the level of social involvements is often worth many tens of thousands of pounds a year extra in terms of life satisfaction," the Daily Mail quoted said Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee, as saying.

"Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. One potential explanation is that social activities tend to require our attention while they are being experienced, so that the joy derived from them lasts longer in our memory.

"Income, on the other hand, is mostly in the background. We don't normally have to pay so much attention to the fact that we'll be getting a pay packet at the end of the week or month, so the joy derived from income doesn't last as long," Dr Powdthavee said.

The economists also found that unhappiness can bring about just as dramatic change in fortune as happiness.

While a painful divorce can bring misery equivalent to going 139,000 pounds into debt, loss of a job is equivalent to losing 143,000 pounds.

ANI