Are you happy? This question might be a bit off-putting, but the polling app Votee has the rightly surveyed answer. With data collected from over 85,000 adult respondents from the seven APAC countries, Thailand emerges at the top while Hong Kong trails at the bottom in terms of the happiness index.
Between October 2021 and December 2022, the data shows Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines occupying the highest rungs while Hong Kong is at the bottom. This statistical information is collected from the seven APAC countries — Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.
What the Votee Happiness Index Findings show and what the data mean
What does the happiness index show?
At a glance, it is apparent that the happiness index has dropped over the past year. The highest point of 7.47 was recorded in October 2021, which dipped to a low of 6.5 in December 2022. In between, slight spikes can be seen in March and November 2022 when a happiness index of 7.31 and 6.94 are seen, respectively.
Happiness index in relation to GDP
The Votee survey revealed quite an interesting link between the happiness index and GDP among the APAC nations. As per the press release of the app, the Philippines clocked in at the second position with a 7.59 score out of 10 but has a GDP per capita worth USD 3,548 — one of the lowest figures.
Conversely, Hong Kong bagged a score of 5.6 but has a GDP per capita of a staggering USD 49,660 — one of the highest in the region. Singapore falls somewhere in between with a score of 6.28 but has the highest per capita GDP of USD 72,794 among all the APAC nations.
Such an inversely proportional relation is observed in the trends of Indonesia as well. The country scored 7.43 on the happiness index but has a GDP per capita of USD 4,291.
Happiness index of Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s happiness index has seen quite a tumultuous trend over the year. On one hand, it mostly stayed below the 5.38 mark between November 2021 and April 2022; on the other, the graph saw a slope in May 2022, when the social distancing norms were relaxed. This, combined with the start of the festival season and holidays, further upped the graph and a score of 6.12 was noted in November 2022.
What is Votee’s happiness forecast?
Votee uses a special Random Cut Forest (RCF) machine learning algorithm to use past data and forecast future trends. Using this, Votee suggests that Hong Kong’s happiness index is expected to fall as low as 5.5 by April 2023 and then spring back to a 6 pointer in May 2023.
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(Main and feature image credit: MI PHAM/ @phammi/ Unsplash)
