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People are generally happy with their jobs and even get a sense of purpose in their work. But according to research, finding happiness is not that simple.

In a research titled "Are You Happy While You Work?" researchers found out that working is negatively correlated with happiness. This is even when there are other pleasurable activities combined with work like chatting with friends.

People would rather be doing something else rather than working. Economists think that work becomes dependent on the pay people get.

Paid work plays an important role in people's happiness and their overall life satisfaction. That is the reason why it is not surprising that work generates a feeling of being worthy and leading to a sense of meaning or purpose in life. People who became unemployed declined in their well-being and were not able to fully recover, unlike other personal circumstance.

The researchers draw their data from an app called Mappiness which was able to gather more than a million observations from tens of thousands individuals in the United Kingdom since August 2010. The result showed that paid work is ranked lower than any other 38 activities people engaged in. The exception is being sick on bed.

The authors admit that there are drawbacks in the methodology of the data collection like non-random sampling of participants. However, it has advantages as well like obtaining instantaneous responses where people can report their feelings real time.

Part of the reason why work has an adverse effect on people's wellbeing is anxiety at work. Some people has positive mind set about paid work that give gives value and meaning to their work. However, it is the actual engagement at work which gives pressures and stress that affect their happiness. Work is what gives people their sense of purpose. However, it is also the place where they feel the worst.