MANILA, Philippines — A recent survey from American analytics and advisory firm Gallup revealed that the Philippines clinched 10th place across 142 countries with “positive experiences” in 2023.
The Philippines recorded an 82 percent positive experience index along with Senegal and Thailand.
Meanwhile, Paraguay and Panama ranked first in all the countries surveyed for the “highest positive experiences index.”
Gallup’s Positive and Negative Experience Indexes measure how people feel each day, showing leaders the well-being of their societies beyond economic numbers like gross domestic product.
“Negative emotions dipped for the first time in a decade, and positive emotions rebounded to their pre-pandemic highs,” Gallup said in its statement.
On the other hand, the Negative Experience Index decreased globally for the first time since 2014. From 2022 to 2023, all five negative emotions in the index decreased, with stress seeing the largest decrease.
In 2023, 37 percent of adults worldwide reported feeling stressed, which was three percentage points lower than the previous year but higher than it was a decade ago (33 percent) and in previous years.
It noted that young people under 30 years old were consistently the most positive compared to other age groups. They also recovered emotionally from the pandemic faster, returning to pre-pandemic levels a year earlier than older adults. In 2023, most of the positive changes in the index were seen among those aged 30 and above.
1 out of 5 is lonely worldwide
Due to the serious impact on people’s well-being, Gallup has recently included loneliness in its global emotion surveys. An analysis showed that individuals who reported feeling lonely were much more likely to experience five other negative emotions and less likely to experience positive ones compared to those who did not feel lonely.
According to its initial assessment for 2023, it was found that more than one in five adults worldwide (23 percent) reported feeling lonely for a significant part of the previous day. Loneliness varied widely across countries, with rates ranging from 45 percent in the island nation of Comoros to as low as six percent in Vietnam.
