Trends for World Happiness?

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Trends in World Happiness Report Data

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By plotting overall happiness scores vs individual component scores we aimed to see if there were any global trends in higher component scores (more money, better family/friend relations, longer life expectancy) correlating to higher happiness scores. The graphs are provided below and from what we observed, it seems that globally, more money, better friend/family relations, better health and to a certain extent more individual freedom all relate to a greater happiness with life. Generosity and trust in government however don't share the similar trends of above, and as evident in their graphs below we cannot see any trends indicating that greater trust in government and generosity is associated with greater happiness.

That doesn't mean to say trust in government and generosity are not important in determining the happiness of a country. We think it more so serves to show that trust in government and generosity are not quite as essential of traits in order for a person to become happy. Additionally, it can also be argued that some of the other traits are related to one another. For example, more money generally means better healthcare and health. Better health means more chances to earn money. Strong family/friend relations means less stress which leads to better health and so on. This is by no means a qualified analysis of the data, just a few possible ideas to explain the observed results.

Additionally, population, land mass, and population density were also plotted against happiness score, but these do no seem to have any correlation.

The trend that countries with higher GDP per capita have higher happiness scores shows that money may positively impact happiness

The trend that countries with better family/friend relations have higher happiness scores shows that personal relationships may positively impact happiness

The trend that countries with longer life expectancies have higher happiness scores shows that health may positively impact happiness

The trend that countries with more freedom have higher happiness scores shows that freedom may positively impact happiness

The lack of a trend in countries with more generosity having higher happiness scores shows that generosity may not be a big factor in determining happiness

The lack of a trend in countries with more government trust having higher happiness scores shows that trust in government may not be a big factor in determining happiness

The lack of a trend in countries with higher or lower populations having higher happiness scores shows that population may not be a big factor in determining happiness

The lack of a trend in countries with higher or lower land area having higher happiness scores shows that land mass of countries may not be a big factor in determining happiness

The lack of a trend in countries with higher or lower population densities having higher happiness scores shows that population density may not be a big factor in determining happiness