Monitoring unhappiness

Last week, apropos the International Day of Happiness, I stated my personal preference for: (a) survey questions using the common word “happy” (masaya), rather than the World Happiness Report’s formalistic phrase “satisfied with life” (nasisiyahan sa buhay); and (b) analyzing the downside rather than the upside, i.e., being unhappy (hindi masaya) rather than happy (see “Monitoring ‘happiness’,” 3/21/26).

In its Nov. 24 to 30, 2025 national survey, Social Weather Stations (SWS) used both the “happy” and the “satisfied-life” variants of the question. The former is a probe into an emotion, which is called “affect in psychology,” while the latter is a self-cognition; both have four-point scales. The results are in “Fourth Quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey: 33% of Pinoys are ‘very happy’ with life; 28% are ‘very satisfied’ with life” (www.sws.org.ph, 3/19/26).

The numbers in the report’s title, sourced from the same respondents, show that being very happy (talagang masaya) was slightly easier–by five points, at the time of the survey–for Filipinos to sense than being very satisfied (lubos na nasisiyahan) with life. The percentage fairly happy (medyo masaya) was 50, while the percentage fairly satisfied (medyo nasisiyahan) with life was 51, or the same for both probes. This put the total very + fairly happy at 83 percent and the total very + fairly satisfied with life at 79 percent.

In November 2025, 17 percent of adult Filipinos called themselves unhappy. The balance who said they were not very/not at all happy (hindi masyadong/talagang hindi masaya), i.e., generally unhappy, was 17 percent. On the other hand, the balance who said they were not very/not at all satisfied (hindi masyadong nasisiyahan/lubos na hindi nasisiyahan), with life, i.e., generally dissatisfied, was 21 percent.

The correlation of the answers from the alternative questions is very high and realistic. A crosstabulation (done later, not given in the report) shows 2.0 percent who said they were very happy, but at the same time said they were dissatisfied with life; another 1.0 percent said they were unhappy, yet also said they were very satisfied with life. Such seeming “contradictions” are too few to worry about; they always emerge when comparing results from similar but nonidentical probes.

Unhappiness is directly related to the downside, or inadequacy, of economic well-being. It connects to excessive economic deprivation, rather than to a shortage of economic growth. It is quite appropriate that the top two Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are: 1. No poverty and 2. Zero hunger.

Not too long ago, analyzing the SWS national surveys as of 2020, I found unhappiness always higher among the self-rated poor than the nonpoor, and higher yet among the self-rated food poor. It was always higher among the hungry than the nonhungry, and higher among the severely hungry than among the moderately hungry. (published in “Unhappiness, life-dissatisfaction and economic deprivation in the Philippines: three decades of survey history,” in “The Pope of Happiness: A Festschrift for Ruut Veenhoven,” edited by Alex C. Michalos, Springer, 2021, pp. 133-141)

Unhappiness of Filipinos at present is significantly larger than before the pandemic. In 2021, I wrote: “In December 2019, [i.e. pre-pandemic] when last surveyed, the ‘unhappy’ were 9 percent, and the ‘dissatisfied with life’ were 11 percent, of all adults. These were relatively low, but are inapplicable in the pandemic. In the June 2021 SWS national survey, the Self-Rated Poor are already at 48 percent, and the Hungry are at 13.6 percent, of all families; what will the new lockdown, with minimal ayuda, do to them now?” (“Unhappiness matters more,” 8/7/21).

The latest (November 2025) SWS numbers for economic deprivation have self-rated poverty at 51 percent, and hunger at 20.1 percent (sws.org.ph), i.e., they are much higher now than in June 2021. No wonder that unhappiness has increased. The well-being of Filipinos has not recovered from the pandemic.

The public and private sectors should focus more on reducing poverty and hunger than on maximizing growth in the gross national product (see “Minimize ill-being first,” 7/26/25). Targeted subsidies to the needy, like the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Walang Gutom Program will definitely result in reducing unhappiness; general investment in infrastructure is not as promising. Finally, government spending should be tax-financed, so as not to add to inflation in the cost of living.