Each year, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network publishes The World Happiness Report, which rates the happiness of individuals in about 150 countries. The survey asks respondents for their subjective life evaluation ranking, and then correlates the results with various life measures.
Rankings are interesting. Perhaps even more interesting is understanding the factors that contribute to high happiness rankings. Wealth? Love? Safety? What makes us happy?
Jeffrey Sachs, the president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a founder of the World Happiness Report suggests, “ If we want to build back happier, we’ll have to know where to look for happiness.” 1
Laura Castro-Schilo, JMP Senior Research Statistician responsible for guiding the development of Structural Equation Modeling in JMP Pro, described how SEM models certainly could be deployed to identify and quantify the measures that contribute most to happiness. “SEM is a tool to measure intangible constructs, or latent variables, like intelligence, personality, and attitudes. These things are not seen directly, but rather, through their effect on observed variables. SEM models can help identify the important predictors of latent variables, as well as their outcomes,” explained Laura.
The happiness survey results are put through sophisticated statistical analysis to explain why people feel happy or unhappy about their lives. As it turns out, that sentiment can be explained by some combination of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, freedom from corruption, and wealth.
See a video and use JMP Pro materials from the Nov. 3, 2022 Developer Tutorial: Building Structural Equation Models in JMP Pro given by Laura Castro-Schilo and her colleague James Koepfler.
The short interview below tells the story of Laura's interest in SEM and how she spends time keeping happy.
Resources:
1 One Team is Measuring How the World is Redefining Happiness, For the Better. March 10, 2021.
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