"Countries with more cats tend to have happier populations" is a statement I would love to advertise everywhere. In fact, let's turn it into a bumper sticker so all the cat moms and dads can have something to be proud of. It makes sense, if you think about it: cats are great pets for both introverts and extroverts, they fill normally empty houses with love and give their hoomans a reason to be excited about when waking up and coming home from work. But, like all things on the internet, it's not quite as simple as X + Y = Z.
I came across this bold statement on @sociaty's post while scrolling and, knowing how cool this could be to share on I Can Has Cheezburger, I decided to dive in and actually check to see what this study said. I read through the whole thing, all 14 pages of it. Here's what they actually studied : the researchers wanted to see if a country's happiness could be connected to factors beyond traditional measurements such as wealth, income, and healthcare. For this study specifically, they wanted to check if countries with more cats were happier, and if a purrticular parasite connected to cats was connected to lower happiness.
In short, yes, they did find a pawsitive correlation between more cats and greater happiness. However, they still found that wealth matters significantly (duh) and that more cats didn't necessarily mean more exposure to the parasite.
Cats are great pets, we don't need a scientific study to prove that. They teach us about boundaries, empathy, the power of choosing the purrson you love, and companionship. Regardless of how they affect a country's happiness, we know that on an individual level, they make our days better and our lives more interesting. Even if they do add 300% more chaos to our day-to-day lives.