More than 95 percent of Chinese believe that governmental performance impacts directly on their happiness and close to 90 percent agreed that people's happiness index should be one of the criteria of assessment for government officials' performances, according to an online poll.

The Beijing-based China Youth Daily (CYD) recently announced the results after polling 2,633 people online on the subject of happiness and the factors that determine their happiness.

Meng Qingguo, an expert in public governance, said that local governments used to focus solely on GDP, and therefore little attention had been paid to measures of public livelihood such as education, medical care and public security.

Meng added that these public services are crucial in determining a person's happiness, therefore allowing for an assessment of an official's performance on these criteria.

Based on the poll, only 30 percent said they felt happy, with 38 percent describing their feeling of happiness as average and 11 percent saying they were "extremely unhappy."

Concerning the causes of happiness, health, income and social status were voted as the top three factors.

However, happiness as a measure of performance drew some mixed opinions, with some arguing that such feeling was purely subjective, and therefore could neither be measured through statistics nor used as a scientific measure of evaluation for officials.

"I wonder how much of a difference such a criterion would make," said Yang Yiyong, director of Institute of Social Development Research under the National Development and Reform Commission.

An increasing number of Chinese began to realize high GDP does not mean high happiness.

A research on the personal happiness of the middle class last March by an insurance company revealed that inhabitants of major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing were usually unhappier than those living in smaller cities.

CYD recently shone a light on the methods of local officials in Pingdingshan, Henan Province and Jiangyi, Jiangsu Province. They have developed a happiness index evaluation system, which will be taken into consideration when assessing their officials' performance.