Cat lovers, gather round. A new study found that countries with more cats tend to be happier. Somewhere, a cat is reading this over your shoulder and nodding.
Who did it
A team led by Javier I. Borráz-León, with Dario Maestripieri of the University of Chicago, published it in the journal PLOS ONE. Using public data from 93 countries, they compared happiness scores, the number of pet cats, how wealthy each country is, and how common a cat-linked parasite called Toxoplasma is.
Why a parasite?
Cats are Toxoplasma's favourite home. Up to one in three people carry it. For most it's harmless, but other research has linked it to anxiety and depression. So you'd expect: more cats, more parasite, less happy people. Right?
Plot twist
Wrong. Countries with more cats reported more happiness, and actually had less of the parasite, not more.
But the real winner was money. Happiness was linked to wealth even more strongly than to cats. Richer countries were happier, had more cats and had fewer parasites.
The researchers' best guess: in richer countries, cats live indoors, get vaccinated, go to the vet and eat from a bag, so they spread less of the parasite. In poorer places, more cats roam free.
So is it the cats?
The authors are honest: they “cannot say that having more cats makes people happier.” These are whole countries, not people. To find out, scientists would have to follow cat owners and non-owners for years, which is what they suggest next.
Meanwhile
Keep your cat indoors if you can, take it to the vet, and wash your hands after the litter tray. Whether it makes you happier is between the two of you. The cat has already decided: yes, and dinner is late.