Individual Happiness: A Comparative Study of Its Structure, Causes, and Enhancement in Canada and Thailand

Abstract

This two-country study of individual happiness seeks to answer three main questions: what are the structures and determinants of happiness in an OECD high income country (Canada) and in an Asian upper-middle income country (Thailand); whether the shapes of happiness and the factors affecting the happiness of these countries look different; and if so, why? To address these questions, a broad and representative sampling of 331 participants in Canada where known for its social safety net and traditionally high levels of human development and happiness are statistically compared to a sample of 464 participants in Thailand, a non-Western economy endowed with a unique King’s sufficiency economy philosophy. Primary data were collected in 2012 from Thailand and in 2012 - 2013 in Canada. First, descriptive analysis is employed to report the variations in happiness of both countries at the level of urbanity and given the characteristics of the populations in this study. Principal component analysis and linear least squares regressions are used to identify the happiness structures. Then, ordered logit models are estimated in order to investigate the important determinants of happiness. The internal structure of happiness is explored through two complementary approaches in order to determine the most important dimensions in which people themselves experience happiness. The first, deductive approach, following Calkins and Ngu Wah Win (2013) separates overall well-being a priori into five sub-dimensions of well-being: physical; emotional; mental; social; and spiritual. It then regresses happiness on the scores for each of the subcomponents to test their significance and mathematical signs for each subsample. To the extent that differences by geographical and gender sub-populations prove trivial, happiness is judged to be “universal” across representative populations. The second, inductive approach employs principal component analysis to elicit an alternative set of structural components of happiness ex post based on hitherto hidden associations among the perceptions of the respondents themselves. Happiness is once again regressed on this second set of variables. It is hypothesized that the principal component results provide a better statistical fit because they capture the particular characteristics of the populations under study. The findings for Thailand find both approaches to be valid, complementary, and even to overlap. In contrast, in the results from Canada, only the deductive approach is found to be valid. This is an important finding, both for understanding happiness in both countries, particularly Thailand; and for the methodology of future world happiness studies. Key findings are that Canadian happiness has a balanced structure, while Thai happiness structure is twisted and displays an obvious lack of social well-being. Spirituality and mentality achieve the highest weights among the internal components of happiness. The final step of the analysis applies t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and ordered logit regressions to determine the significance, signs and relative importance of the key determinants of happiness as the dependent variable. Such determinants are hypothesized not to include rises in income (following the so-called Easterlin paradox), but to include other objectively verifiable social parameters. The study concludes that the causes of happiness between Thailand and Canada are partially different. However, there do remain three universal determinants of happiness: community satisfaction, time playing sports on a team, and indifference to politics. Recommendations are generated to suggest how government projects and social programs might enhance overall subjective well-being. For Thailand these include. 1) targeting social capital, particularly bonding in community relationships, 2) providing or building recreational spaces in the community, and 3) solving political tensions. For Canada, policy recommendations focus on promoting and creating more voluntary activities. NGOs should also provide more charitable houses to support sharing behavior.