200 Final Project Proposal

Is the world becoming a happier place?

Team Members

Aaron Lin, Siddharth Manu, Stephanie Andrews

Primary Dataset

World Happiness Report Data

Secondary Datasets

UNdata, Worldbank, World Risk Poll, Terror Deaths, World Inequality Database , Climate Risk Index, Environmental Performance Index, World Map GeoJson, GDELT Project

Primary Research Question

What factors contribute to global happiness?

Goals

• Visualize global happiness levels, by country and by region
• Analyze factors that may contribute to changes in national happiness
• Provide actionable insights into the most important factors to improve quality of life

Research Questions and EDA Plan

Priority	Questions	Sub-questions	Viz Types
1	Is the world becoming a happier place?	In which direction is the world happiness index moving as the decade progresses?	Line plot per country Trend plots of best and worst
1	Are global events correlated with changes in global happiness values?	Did the coronavirus pandemic cause happiness scores to decrease?	Scatter plot Series of boxplots
1	How are national happiness levels related to wealth?	Do countries with higher GDPs have higher life expectancies? What countries have the highest life expectancies/GDPs? How does this relate to national happiness levels?	Scatter plot
2	Are technological innovations correlated with changes in happiness?	Has social media made countries more or less happy?	Scatter plot \ Series of boxplots
2	To what extent does terrorism affect the happiness of the populace?	Do countries with more terror deaths have lower happiness values? Do countries with more terror deaths have outlier perceptions of corruption?	Scatter plot
2	Do countries with more access to clean water and air have higher happiness values?	Do countries with better access to clean water have better life expectancies? Social support? Do they have lower perceptions of corruption?	Scatter plot
2	Is climate change causing disproportionate changes to happiness in different countries?	Which countries are most vulnerable to climate change?	Choropleth map
3	What matters more for happiness: a growing GDP per capita or a widening wealth gap?	What if GDP is growing but the wealth gap is also growing? What if the rich are getting richer but the masses are poorer?	Scatter plot with GDP on X axis and Wealth inequality on Y-axis, Bubble chart

Report Structure

• Background and Context
  • Audience: policy makers, international NGOs, general public
  • Overview of related reports
  • Defining data sources, schemas
• Summary of research questions and sub-questions
• National happiness index and how it’s calculated
• Studying the implications of external factors on happiness:
  • Health: life expectancy, infant mortality rates
  • Environmental: climate change, access to clean resources
  • Political: terrorism, conflict
  • Economic: wealth inequality, GDP
  • Growth: technological innovations
• Implications and actionable insights
• Key focus areas for happiness index
• Further Analysis