AN APPLICATION ON FACTORS DETERMINING HAPPINESS IN THE WORLD COUNTRIES: ORDERED LOGIT MODEL

Happiness has been constantly discussed as it is the highest goal that human beings want to reach throughout life topics such as what happiness is, whether it actually exists, how it can be obtained, whether it is decisive on human behavior, why people want to be happy. Happiness is part of a broad field of research on individual well-being, such as genetic factors, living conditions and socio-demographic factors. In this study, “World Happiness Report 2017 Survey” conducted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Network for 2016 have been used in order to analyze the relationship between the level of hapinness and GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceptions of corruption, positive affect, negative affect, confidence in national government, unemployment rate and inflation rate. The Ordered Logit Model has been utilized to determine the magnitudes of the relationships, ifexist. The results indicate that GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity, positive affect and negative affect increase the level of happiness of people in the world countries and that the increases in perceptions of corruption, confidence in national government, unemployment and inflation rate decrease the level of happiness