Gender differences in general health and happiness: a study on Iranian engineering students

Abstract

This article aims to determine the relationship between general health and happiness in male and female engineering students in Iran. The analysis relies on a unique dataset collected through two questionnaires (Oxford Happiness and GHQ28) from a representative sample (n = 2,000). Although similar data have been collected quite independently by different communities of researchers, and empirical evidence points to very similar underlying mechanisms, but they did not consider non-normal distribution samples. In this study, data were analyzed by Kruskal–Wallis and Wilcoxon’s signed rank tests. The mean happiness and general health were 42.89 ± 14.84 and 23.76 ± 13.28, respectively. There was a positive and significant relationship between these two variables (P ≤ 0.05, r = 0.59). Happiness showed significant differences in males and females, but general health did not. In general, female students enjoyed more health and happiness. This study argues that clarifying the relationship between happiness and health in different genders can help academic authorities and youth planners to pay special attention to this issue and provide particular programs.