The Australian: Shock new research: sex makes us happy [May 29, 2004]:
"TREASURER Peter Costello might have been on to something with his post-budget appeal that people have more sex.
Research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States has found a strong link between people's happiness and the amount of sex they have.
Although the research also shows that people with high incomes are happier than people with low incomes, it found that there is no relationship between people's earnings and the amount of sex they have.
It is not money but quantity that counts. Happiest are those who have sex more than four times a week. They are about 6 per cent of the population. Unhappiest are the 22 per cent of people in the study of 16,000 Americans who didn't have sex at all in the previous year.
However, the relationship between sex and happiness does not extend to the number of sexual partners a person has a year.
The more sexual partners one has (several respondents to the survey reported more than 100 in the past year), the unhappier.
People on high incomes are no more likely to have more than one sexual partner in the past year than people on low incomes.
People who have paid for sex are considerably less happy than others, as are those who have had sex outside their marriage.
There is no statistical difference in the happiness scores of homosexual or heterosexual sex.
Happiness research is an emerging field of economics that looks at the consequences of having money, says happiness researcher at the Australian National University, Paul Frijters.
He notes that many would regard it as the job of the state to create the conditions that make people happy."
"TREASURER Peter Costello might have been on to something with his post-budget appeal that people have more sex.
Research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States has found a strong link between people's happiness and the amount of sex they have.
Although the research also shows that people with high incomes are happier than people with low incomes, it found that there is no relationship between people's earnings and the amount of sex they have.
It is not money but quantity that counts. Happiest are those who have sex more than four times a week. They are about 6 per cent of the population. Unhappiest are the 22 per cent of people in the study of 16,000 Americans who didn't have sex at all in the previous year.
However, the relationship between sex and happiness does not extend to the number of sexual partners a person has a year.
The more sexual partners one has (several respondents to the survey reported more than 100 in the past year), the unhappier.
People on high incomes are no more likely to have more than one sexual partner in the past year than people on low incomes.
People who have paid for sex are considerably less happy than others, as are those who have had sex outside their marriage.
There is no statistical difference in the happiness scores of homosexual or heterosexual sex.
Happiness research is an emerging field of economics that looks at the consequences of having money, says happiness researcher at the Australian National University, Paul Frijters.
He notes that many would regard it as the job of the state to create the conditions that make people happy."
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