A new report funded by Arts Council England, which focuses on the effect museums have on individuals’ wellbeing, concludes that “visiting museums is positively associated with higher levels of happiness”.
The Happy Museum Project asked Daniel Fujiwara, an economist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, to find out if museum-going makes people feel better, and also identify what makes them more likely to visit museums.
For the research, entitled Museums and Happiness: The Value of Participating in Museums and the Arts, Fujiwara used data from the Taking Part survey commissioned annually by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
About 100,000 responses from the period 2005 to 2011 form the basis of the study.
Fujiwara illustrated the happiness levels in monetary terms, saying that people value visiting museums at about £3,200 annually.
“In other words, it is the amount of money people would, in theory, give up in order to undertake the activity,” the report said.
In the report foreword, Tony Butler, the director of the Happy Museum Project, said “counting visitor numbers tells us nothing about the quality of their experience”.
The report also found that people who were never taken to museums by their parents were far less likely to visit as adults.
The Happy Museum Project asked Daniel Fujiwara, an economist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, to find out if museum-going makes people feel better, and also identify what makes them more likely to visit museums.
For the research, entitled Museums and Happiness: The Value of Participating in Museums and the Arts, Fujiwara used data from the Taking Part survey commissioned annually by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
About 100,000 responses from the period 2005 to 2011 form the basis of the study.
Fujiwara illustrated the happiness levels in monetary terms, saying that people value visiting museums at about £3,200 annually.
“In other words, it is the amount of money people would, in theory, give up in order to undertake the activity,” the report said.
In the report foreword, Tony Butler, the director of the Happy Museum Project, said “counting visitor numbers tells us nothing about the quality of their experience”.
The report also found that people who were never taken to museums by their parents were far less likely to visit as adults.
