A Comparative Study of Trends of Happiness Between the Nordic Region and Japan through Quantitative Approach

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to compare the consecutive years of degree of happiness between the Nordic region and Japan. The second aim is to seek for the detrimental factor contributing to happiness before and during the pandemic, based on the measurement by the World Happiness Report. Yearly based datasets of 'life ladder score', 'log GDP per capita', 'social support', 'healthy life expectancy', 'freedom to make life choices', 'generosity', and 'perception of corruption' from 2008 to 2021 were used for the aim and goal. The results of this study showed there were no significant changes in the trend of happiness from 2008 to 2021 between the Nordic region and Japan. Also, there were not any significant differences in terms of subjective well-being before and during the pandemic. Besides, as a result of multiple regression analysis, the study revealed that 'freedom to make life choices' was the detrimental factor that contributed to the subjective well-being before the pandemic. On the other hand, during the pandemic, 'social support' was the detrimental factor between the Nordic region and Japan. This study implied the connectedness between the subjective well-being and self-determination theory in terms of relatedness, and autonomy. For further investigation, it was concluded that creating a more inclusive measurement of happiness which adjusts diverse psychological definitions of happiness, investigating the relationship between the subcategories of population and happiness, and reviewing more comprehensive detrimental factors that explain well-being between the Nordic region and Japan should be needed.