The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The GDP per capita figures are Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) adjusted to constant 2005 international dollars, taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI) released by the World Bank in April 2013.
Data on healthy life expectancy at birth is from the World Health Organization (WHO) and life expectancy is World Development Indicators. For countries that do not have some data, it imputed. Social support (or having someone to count on in times of trouble) is the national average of the binary responses to the question “If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them, or not?”
Freedom to make life choices is the national average of responses to the question “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?”
Generosity is the residual of regressing national average of response to the question “Have you donated money to a charity in the past month?” on GDP per capita.
Perceptions of corruption are the average of answers to two questions: “Is corruption widespread throughout the government or not” and “Is corruption widespread within businesses or not?”
Uganda declines
The World Happiness Report data is mainly based on the Gallup World Poll which surveys more than 160 countries in over 140 languages. The main life evaluation question asked in the Gallup poll is: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” This ladder is known as the “Cantril Ladder of Life Scale”. On it, residents of richer and healthier communities also consistently report being happier.
Recently, there has been wide debate on whether Ugandans are richer today than in the past and whether the access and quality of care today ensures that Ugandans are healthier the before. The World Happiness Ranking feeds directly into this debate.
In the early years of the happiness survey, Ugandans were happier mainly because, although they had relative lower GDP per capita, many of them reported having very strong social support systems.At the time, if a Ugandan was asked if they have relatives or friends they can count on to help whenever they need help in the middle of a problem, more Ugandans would have said yes. Today, that figure has declined dramatically, according to the 2018 survey. Back then, Ugandans also trusted a lot. But this too has declined.
By 2013, Kenya already had a higher GDP per capita than Uganda, but Uganda ranked higher on the happiness index because of the high score on social support indices. Now, however, although Kenya has also declined on the social support index, it has managed to stay higher on the happiness index than Uganda because Kenyans are richer. For the same reasons, Rwandans and Burundians have remained lower because they are poorer than Ugandans on average. Tanzania, meanwhile, is lower than Uganda on the happiness index for a different reason. Although, according to the 2018 survey, more Tanzanians report that they count on their relatives and friends than Ugandans, the Tanzanians have a lower impact of GDP per capita.
The rich are happy
The World Happiness Report also selects specific aspects of well-being for analysis of impact. In the past the focus has been on issues like health; especially mental health and poverty. According to the reports, it is clear that richer people tend to say they are happy. Most of these are in countriesthat have enjoyed sustained economic growth over long periods. It is not about an individual rich person in a sea of poverty.
