In 2016, the Department of Tourism of the Philippines unveiled its new tourism campaign dubbed "It's more fun in the Philippines" aiming to highlight Philippine culture, Filipino characters of being joyful and hospitable, cuisine and lifestyle, and the tourism industry to attract foreign visitors.
Years have passed, many events have happened, and a new administration has overtook, the department still holds the tourism campaign and this brings the question if the tagline is still true and relevant these days.
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network that publishes annual reports of national happiness based on the ratings of each criteria. These criteria are:
- the natural log GDP per capita,
- social support,
- healthy life expectancy at birth,
- freedom to make life choices,
- generosity, and
- perceptions of corruption.
The main feature of the dataset is the happiness score, also referred to as Cantril life ladder, or ladder score. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. The report correlates the life evaluation results with other features mentioned earlier.
This analysis seeks to answer the following questions:
- What is the state of the happiness score of the Philippines in the world?
- What are the factors that highly affect the happiness score of the Philippines?
- Does GDP per capita influence the happiness score of the Philippines? How strong is the correlation between two features?
State of the happiness score of the Philippines in the world
The line graph above shows the ladder scores (happiness index) of the Philippines from 2006 to 2021. The lowest recorded ladder score is during 2006 at 4.669946 and the highest is in 2019 at 6.267745.
Based on the analysis, the Philippines ranked 66th happiest country in the world in 2021 with 5.8802 ladder score. In historical data, the Philippines ranked 86th happiest country with ladder score of 5.256793. See “2021 Philippines vs. The World” and “Philippines Historical Data (2006-2021)” sections for more information.
In the ASEAN Region, the Philippines ranked 3rd happiest country with 5.8802 ladder score in 2021. In historical data, the Philippines ranked 5th happiest country with 5.256793 ladder score. See “Philippines vs. ASEAN Countries” section for more information.
Factors that highly affect the happiness score of the Philippines
The factors affecting the happiness score of the Philippines are determined using standard correlation coefficient or Pearson’s correlation. The correlation table is graphed in a heatmap to identify the spots where high positive and negative relationships are found.
On positive relationship, the log GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy at birth scores the highest positive correlation at 0.978401. This means that the two features move in the same positive direction. If the log GDP per capita increases, healthy life expectancy at birth also increases. The correlation between the two features is statistically significant at confidence level of 95% (α of 0.05 > p-value of 5.5539247012691395e-11).
Next is the freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy at 0.923263 (α of 0.05 > p-value of 3.423774679928049e-07). Lastly, the log GDP per capita and ladder score at 0.850987 (α of 0.05 > p-value of 2.922413061494319e-05). All are statistically significant.
On negative relationship, the perceptions of corruption and healthy life expectancy scores at -0.875596. This means that the two features move in the same negative direction. If the perceptions of corruption increases, healthy life expectancy at birth healthy life expectancy decreases. The correlation between the two features is statistically significant at confidence level of 95% (α of 0.05 > p-value of 8.84474766153686e-06).
Next is the perceptions of corruption and freedom to make life choices at -0.875319 (α of 0.05 > p-value of 8.9767790795422e-06), also statistically significant.
Influence of GDP per capita to the happiness score of the Philippines
The natural log GDP per capita of the Philippines influences the happiness score (ladder score) of the Philippines. The Pearson correlation of the two features is 0.850987 and is statistically significant at confidence level of 95% (α of 0.05 > p-value of 2.922413061494319e-05). This means for every increase of GDP per capita of the Philippines, the happiness score also increases. More information can be seen on “Sorting ladder score by log GDP per capita” section.
Other observations
- In 2021, Finland topped the rankings as the happiest country in the world with a ladder score of 7.8421.
- In analyzing historical data, Denmark led the rankings with 7.676504 mean ladder score from 2005-2021.
- Luxembourg has the highest Log GDP per capita at 11.646564 and managed to be at 8th spot in the world at 7.3244 ladder score in 2021.
- In both 2021 and historical data, all countries included in the top 10 highest ladder scores have Log GDP per capita ranging from 10 to 11, higher healthy life expectancy at birth ranging from 71 and above, freedom to make life choices and social support ranging from 0.90 and above.
- Norway has the highest freedom to make life choices at 0.954847 score and managed to be included in top countries sorted by ladder score in historical data (ranked 4th).
- In ASEAN Region, Singapore topped both 2021 and historical datasets at 6.3765 and 6.495141 ladder scores, respectively.
- All ASEAN countries, except Brunei, are present in both datasets.
- Note: Since DataFrame indices start at 0, all rankings from the datasets are adjusted (n+1) to fit the real-world scenario of ranking countries.
Datasets are retrieved from https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2021/.
Notebook of this data analysis can be accessed through https://github.com/ralphgutz/is-it-really-more-fun-in-the-philippines.
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