Abstract

        Most would agree that the most important aspect of true happiness is feeling loved and appreciated. Yet it is little studied. Even in our series of studies on the health of the body, mind and spirit, this subject had low priority. Yet the distribution of feeling loved is very uneven.

        Most Canadians feel loved and appreciated almost always: 59% of both women and men, 56% of mothers and 60% of fathers. Regionally, the highest percentage appears in Newfoundland, 69%, and the lowest in Alberta and British Columbia, 57% each.

        Within subgroups there are major variations in the percentage feeling loved and appreciated almost always. The percentage rises steadily by age group, from 56% of teens aged 15 to 19, to 74% of seniors 80 plus. It is 39% of the separated, 46% of the divorced, and 65% of the married population.

        This most loved category is most common among Presbyterians, 68%, followed by Pentecostals and Lutherans, 66% each, and lowest in the Hindu-Buddhist-Sikh group, 50%, and the no religion groups, 52% and 53%. The percentage rises with worship frequency: 56%, once past year; 66%, weekly.

        Overall, 15% of women and 13% of men feel loved and appreciated only half the time or less often during the preceding month. If these were unemployment rates, there would be a public outcry.

        Among parents, the lowest rates of parents feeling loved half the time or less are found among the younger parents aged 25 to 29, 10% (13% mothers, 5% fathers), and the highest rates in the 50 to 54, 19%, about the same for mothers and fathers.

        The rate is higher for cohabiting parents, 14%, than married parents, 11%, especially mothers, 13% and 19% respectively. These rates are lowest for Eastern Orthodox/Ukrainian Catholic parents, 8%, followed by Pentecostal, 9%, and Islam, 10%, and highest for and non-French Catholics, 14%.

        The analytical results reveal feelings of being loved are more common among men than women in most of the 40 subpopulations analyzed.

        The lack of association of feeling loved with education is the rule in almost all subpopulations and negative in three groups, counter to our expectation.

        The associations with the frequency of feeling loved are as expected in most groups for worship frequency, positive, lifetime marijuana use, negative, and hours of sleep, positive. It is unexpectedly positive with age.

        Few of the regional differences are statistically significant, except for Quebec: nine subpopulations feel loved more often than their counterparts in Ontario: mothers, working mothers, the cohabiting, the separated or divorced, the employed, immigrants, and non-French Catholics, for example.