Project Proposal: Analysis of World Happiness Index Changes (2015-2022)

Introduction

We propose a comprehensive analysis of the World Happiness Index spanning the years 2015 to 2022, with a primary focus on understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the overall happiness score and the contributing variables. Our research aims to uncover trends, identify outliers, and assess the significance of various factors, such as GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, and social support, on the total happiness score.

Objectives

Impact of COVID-19:

• Analyze changes in the total happiness score between 2015 and 2022, with a specific focus on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Examine variations in individual variables contributing to the total score during the pandemic.

Variable Correlation and Outliers:

• Identify variables with higher correlation to the total happiness score, emphasizing GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, and social support.
• Conduct an in-depth analysis to detect outliers, exploring instances of countries deviating from general trends.

Visualizations:

• Present visualizations illustrating countries with significant changes in total happiness scores, accompanied by their respective regions.
• Depict how regional averages have evolved over time and explore the relationship between different variables and regions.
• Showcase correlations between different variables and their impact on the calculated total happiness score.

Key Findings:

Covid Impact:

• Noticeable decrease in life expectancy for the top 20 countries with the highest healthy life expectancy, indicative of a global trend likely influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Significant decrease in Social Support for all countries, indicating that people felt alone and lacked support from family and government.

Regional Trends:

• Central and Eastern Europe experienced the highest mean increase in happiness scores, dominating the top 20 countries with the greatest rise. Sub-Saharan Africa showcased both significant rises and falls, hinting at regional polarization.

Variable Correlations:

• Generosity appears to be less correlated with the overall happiness score compared to GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, and social support.
• GDP per capita in Western European and North American countries exhibits the least deviation within their regions, emphasizing regional disparities in economic well-being.

Data Source:

World Happiness Index, 2015-2022

Team Members:

1. Mizrap Durakoglu
2. Ziyue Hua
3. Brandon Lau
4. Shrija Mittal
5. Alexander Skovbo