In a study that focuses on the links between income, sexual activity and well-being; researchers studied data collected from 16,000 people and found that sex is the activity that produces the single largest amount of happiness.

Some of the interesting findings include:

– greater income does not buy more sex, nor more sexual partners;

– sexual activity appears to have greater effects on the happiness of highly educated people than those with low levels of education;

– highly educated females tend to have fewer sexual partners;

– And, happiness-maximizing number of sexual partners in the previous year is calculated to be 1

According to these findings, monogamy generates the most happiness. Married people reported to have more sex than those who are single, divorced, widowed, or separated.

The study goes on to find that people who say they have ever paid for sex are considerably less happy than others. Those who have ever had sex outside their marriage also report notably low happiness scores.

SOURCE: Blanchflower, David G. and Andrew J. Oswald. “Money, Sex And Happiness: An Empirical Study,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2004, v106(3), 393-415.