We first began our analysis by exploring the spread of happiness scores across the globe.

Here, we can pretty clearly see how the happiness scores are distributed, with Western countries appearing darker than Asian and African ones. This coincides with our hypothesis that because the dataset uses questions posed by Western organizations, the scores may not account for the cultural differences in defining happiness across different regions of the world. This analysis holds significant relevance, as proving this theory and isolating variables that contribute to this disparity could pave the way for advocating a reevaluation of data collection methods in future editions of the World Happiness Report.

This section of our analysis aims to answer the question:

Does there appear to be a positive leaning towards more Westernized nations? Is the source of the data a potential cause for this bias?

Potential Western Biases within the Dataset 

Since our literary analysis suggested that the variables within the dataset were insufficient to fully assess happiness scores within in various socio-cultural contexts, we wanted to further explore whether the dataset’s Western origins were a potential source of bias. 

_{Plot of Happiness Score distributions by Continent. Select and de-select years from the dropdown on the right to see how this changes year-by-year.}

When examining the distribution of happiness scores across continents, we see that Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America have distributions that cluster towards the higher values, no matter the selected year. Countries like the Middle East and North Africa, however, take on a very large range of values. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia tend to consistently have scores on the lower end of the distribution compared to the rest. These differences seen within individual continents may also indicate potential differences between “Western” and “Non-Western” nations. 

To further explore this hypothesis, we grouped the continents within our dataset based on historian Samuel Huntington’s 1996 seminal work Clash of Civilizations ¹and prolific historian Willian H. McNeill’s essay “What We Mean by the West”². While both authors are American and Hannington’s work has been the source of much controversy, these definitions are based on historical, social, and religious contexts. Their designations are seminal and still broadly used today to define “the West” by respected scholars and geographers alike. Therefore, we labeled “Western” continents as North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe and labeled the rest as “Non-Western.”

As seen in the chart above, the mean happiness scores are greater for “Western” Nations (in green) than “Non-Western” Nations (Yellow) across all of the WHR’s years. Another interesting trend is that the median aggregate scores of “Non-Western” nations tend to remain at a consistently lower level than their Western counterparts across every report since 2005.

This is further supported by an exploratory analysis of other relevant variables within the dataset. “Western” nations consistently score higher on all metrics, except that of negative affect, which broadly represents the frequency of negative emotions experienced daily. GDP also followed a similar trend, as seen in the plot below.

However, one variable within the dataset does not follow this trend as clearly: perceived generosity, which quantifies how often individuals within each nation donate to charity.

Here, we found that South and Southeast Asian countries tend to have higher generosity scores compared to their non-Western counterparts. American academic and Co-Founder of the  Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society, Dr. Ruth Shapiro, provides a possible explanation for this trend. She asserts that the popularity of charitable contributions in the West stems primarily from self-interest (tax cuts, notability from names on buildings, etc.). Meanwhile, philanthropists in Asian countries are known to donate in order to enhance personal and business relationships. She attributes support for charity to national laws and regulations that support charitable donations³.

In order to truly determine whether there is a meaningful difference in the scores of “Western” and “Non-Western” nations, we decided to perform hypothesis testing on all of our features. Since the distribution of each of our variables was not normal, we leveraged the Mann-Whitney U test for our investigation.

Our analysis on each of the variables found that the only statistically significant differences between “Western” and “Non-Western” nations were in the happiness scores themselves and GDP.

Source of the Data as a Potential Cause for this Bias

So do these findings mean that “Western” countries are happier than “Non-Western” ones? Not necessarily.

The crux of our argument relies on an article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies: “How can one conclude that wellbeing is higher in country A than country B when wellbeing is being measured according to the way people in country A think about wellbeing (2014)?” Researchers assert that the issue with the WHR is that the questions it poses to assess these factors are viewed from a ” WEIRD lens—a lens of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies.⁴” The very question that determines happiness score, “Are you living your best possible life?”, is a very individualistic one.

Researchers have also discovered that many cultures across the world tend to use family as a measure of well-being and quality of life⁵. The statistically significant difference in happiness scores between “Western” and “Non-Western” nations could be explained by this differing social perspective.

In our Variable Analysis, we discovered that one of the most relevant indicators of happiness score was GDP. It appears that those who report themselves as happier are also those who reside within high-GDP nations and vice versa. A research article published by economists at MIT asserts that “a more affluent economy may create a more individualistic culture,⁶” coinciding with the theory that the questions posed to form the dataset may be too individualistic to truly capture global definitions of happiness.

Conclusion

We find that there is indeed a statistically significant difference in the happiness scores and GDPs of “Western” vs. “Non-Western” nations. However, through literary analysis, we attribute this difference to individualistic biases in the way the happiness score question is posed. Countries with higher GDPs tend to also be countries that value individualism, explaining why those two variables were flagged as relevant.

The tendency to view well-being through a WEIRD lens, combined with the individualistic nature of the happiness score metric, skews the results towards Western countries. Therefore, we believe there is a need for the inclusion of questions that acknowledge the cultural nuances and family-centric values of well-being in societies across the globe. Our findings underscore the need for a more culturally sensitive approach to happiness assessments, urging a broader perspective that transcends the limitations of an individualistic worldview.

Sources

1. https://doi.org/10.2307/20045621 ↩︎
2. https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WH-McNeil-What-We-Mean-by-the-West.pdf ↩︎
3. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-7119-5_1 ↩︎
4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-022-00588-1 ↩︎
5. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00030/full ↩︎
6. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26616128#:~:text=More%20individualist%20coun%2D%20tries%20may,development%20affects%20a%20country’s%20culture. ↩︎