KEY POINTS:
Are you a widow aged over 75, retired, living in a freehold house - though not in Auckland - on an income of more than $75,000 a year, with no dependent children?
Congratulations, you could be the happiest person in the country, based on the Happiness of New Zealand survey issued yesterday by UMR Research.
And the least happy New Zealander? No, it's not a middle-order cricket batsman with a gas-guzzling car and a mortgage that needs refinancing.
Mr Grumpiest is middle-aged and lives in Otago or Southland. He is renting and looking to buy, is unemployed and has never legally married but has dependent children.
But UMR might not be so happy with interpretations that lump its research together in such random fashion.
It simply asked 750 New Zealanders aged 18 and over to rate their happiness on a scale of one to 10, in 12 surveys carried out between August and February.
What the surveys found was:
* Women are happier than men.
* Older people - over 65, but especially over 75 - are the most happy, to a statistically significant level.
* Nelson was the happiest region - 41.1 per cent of those surveyed there rated their happiness as a 9 or 10, well clear of Timaru/Oamaru on 38.7 per cent, and Marlborough on 37.5.
* West Coast/Buller was the least happy region; only 26.4 per cent there rated their happiness a 9 or a 10, less than Manawatu (29.5 per cent) and Auckland (30.5).
* Men were least happy in Otago and Southland.
