Using the definition of “minimal” you seem to be applying, I’d add children and family, and some sort of communal religion. Tons of people all over the world in places like Bangladesh who have few of the things on your list, but derive happiness and satisfaction from their family and their faith.
Things done in the name of religion are a net negative on my life. It's not the fault of all religious people, but the people doing it are hard to avoid if I get involved, even if I were inclined to try.
While that may be the case, 84% of the world identifies with an organized religion, and that number is growing (as the Christian population in China, the world’s largest putatively atheist country, grows rapidly). Religion is a bedrock for social organization nearly everywhere in the world. And actively religious people in nearly every country are much more likely to report being “very happy” compared to inactively religious or irreligious people: https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_19-01-31_wellbeing_activelyre...
None of the things in OP’s list are universals. Most people are happier if they have financial security, but some people find happiness in an ascetic and minimal lifestyle for example. And many poor people are very happy. The list therefore seems to reflect major factors that reflect happiness for the population in general. And, worldwide, participation in religion and having kids are to such factors. For much of the world that’s financially or politically insecure, they are two of the most important factors. Overlooking them completely is quite misanthropic.
Sorry, but there is plenty of happiness research that contradicts most of what you say. There are world-wide studies about it every year in nearly every country of the world. Just look up "World Happiness Report", for instance, but there are many more studies. You can barely find a topic with less empirical research in psychology, sociology, and economics.
You're right that religion and community also play a role in happiness. That should be in the list. However, the rest of what you say is just wrong, or at least very misleading. People in very poor countries are overall less happy or satisfied with their life (according to their own reports) than people in richer countries.
There is a basic level of welfare that anyone who wants to be happy needs to attain. If you don't have that, then there will be all kinds of worries, e.g. you're worried about losing your income when you get sick or how to get enough food for your children. In that case, you cannot be happy. The basic needs and any existential worries associated with them cannot be substituted with religion or anything else.
You’re thinking of happiness as a binary, but the surveys you list describe it as a scale. Most people in Bangladesh don’t meet many of the criteria in OP’s list, particularly income security. (They can feed themselves but that’s about it, and that’s not guaranteed.) So why do they rate themselves a 4.5 out of 10 on global surveys instead of 0? Because family and faith is an important source of happiness. Having kids and being able to feed them (which is a condition short of “income security” as postulated by OP, and is one that even most people in Bangladesh achieve) and participating in your religious community produces a certain baseline level of happiness. Those people would be happier if they also had income security and a fulfilling job. I agree with you on that. But their families and faith are a main source of what happiness they do have. Omitting those things from the list therefore overlooks a huge swath of the human condition.
(Like 90% of the people in the entire world would agree with the above statement and find the omission from the list above perplexing. During the Cold War, Sting actually had a song about how kids was one of the things Americans and Soviets can are on. The fact that people are downvoting it here is an indication of the outsized cultural influence of a set of views that are held by an extreme minority.)
You usually really like to use Scandinavian countries in your arguments but "somehow" you miss out on doing so now since they blatantly disproves your point in this argument.
I don’t see how it disproves anything: https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20.pdf. The United States is among the top 20 happiest countries in the world, happier than France, Spain, or Italy. Seeing as how the US is always portrayed as a dystopian hellhole with no income security, no healthcare, etc., and certainly France, Spain, and Italy fare better on those metrics, that would imply that something, perhaps our religiosity, is doing a lot of work boosting our happiness rankings.
