Understanding Three Dimensions of Happiness Index in Kedungkandang District, Malang City, Indonesia

Abstract

Poverty is the inability to meet the basic needs of life, both for food, clothing, and shelter that might happiness of the people’s life. By collecting both primary and secondary data, the main objective of this study is to determine the level of happiness of the people divided into poor and non-poor households, so that this research might bring a better understanding of poverty in Indonesia, with special case of Kedungkandang District, Malang City through the measurement of Happiness Index covering three dimensions. Happiness threshold is at a scale of 60-79,9 namely Happy level, result research indicates that the district has a quite happy level for the people whole live in it with an average value of the HI at about 44.62. Some important variables to be noticed from the three dimensions are the LSI indicates that in general district residents have higher social satisfaction than their personal, the LAI whereby variables of unworried and undepressed at some sub-districts indicate the very low value, and the LMI wherein neighborhood control has the very low value. For future research, it seems important to scrutinize the social structure of the community to find better possibilities on dealing with poverty through their social ties.