UK Happiness Analysis

Historically, countries have assessed macroeconomic performance indicators that quantify a country's economic development over time through financial metrics such as the gross domestic product, inflation reports, and consumption. However, in 1972, King Jimgme Singye Wanchuck became the catalyst for expanding the scope of what a country's economic development truly means. By introducing the term "gross national happiness", he created a focus on the effect of individual satisfaction on a country's overall development, and raised the importance of not focusing solely on quantitative financial indicators (“Gross National Happiness”). Since this point, the recollection of data regarding happiness, satisfaction, well-being, and overall living conditions has been increasingly conducted, despite most of the data being self-reported.

This project aims to assess the relationship between key indicators of self-reported quality of life, in four domains (mental well-being as measured by the WHO-5 index, social-life satisfaction, overall life satisfaction, and perceived social exclusion) and self-reported happiness among UK adults. Using multiple linear regression, each association with happiness will be compared while controlling for different control variables that may influence the mentioned variables. These domains represent different influences on a person's happiness, and evaluating the domain with the strongest association can reveal insights into the influence that each of them has on self reported happiness.