Unhappiness is volatile, too

Lockdown” and “community quarantine” are the latest terms emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. It seems that what exactly they mean, or how they will be implemented by the powers that be, is still being worked out. Meanwhile, the Filipino people in general must guess for themselves, figure out what might happen to them, and what they can do about it; it won’t be business as usual. The technocrats, as usual, are busily revising their projections on the growth of Gross National Product. But what about other, more basic, components of the people’s overall well-being? What will happen to the objectives of No Poverty and Zero Hunger, which are No. 1 and No. 2 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, for achievement by 2030? Poverty and hunger are volatile: they don’t fall smoothly over time, and they don’t have a dependable connection to the GNP (see “Surveys of economic deprivation,” Opinion, 2/8/20).

What could COVID-19 be doing to the people’s happiness? Happiness is not only measurable, but it has actually been measured many times (“Scales of happiness,” Opinion, 3/23/19). So, as a matter of fact, happiness is volatile, too.

Happiness is measured together with unhappiness, since they are two ends of a spectrum. At present, surrounded by the dreaded COVID-19 rather than by the euphoric Asean Games, it is the lower end that is relevant. Those that feel Not Very Happy or else Not At All Happy with life may be grouped as the

Unhappy, which is an emotional concept.

Happiness/unhappiness has been surveyed nationwide by the Social Weather Stations 38 times since 1991. (Alternatively, those Not Satisfied or else Very Dissatisfied with Life may be grouped as the Dissatisfied with Life, which is a cognitive concept, and has been surveyed nationwide 39 times since 2002.)

The Unhappy were 9 percent of all adult Filipinos in the December 2019 Social Weather Survey—a hefty number of over 5 million persons, given the total adult population of 60 million. The proportion was 13 percent just a year earlier, in December 2018, a time of higher inflation in the cost of living. Before that, there were spikes of 21 percent in September 2014, 23 percent in December 2008 and August 2005, and a peak of 24 percent in May 2005. Bear in mind that a difference of 10 percentage points amounts to 6 million persons.

As an economist, I worry that the negative economic effects of the government’s disruptive lockdown may have a wider impact on the people’s well-being than the negative health effects on those who become ill from the COVID-19 disease itself.

Unhappiness is directly related to poverty and hunger. Classifying the survey respondents into those from Self-Rated Poor families and nonpoor families, and taking all the data over 1991-2019, the percentage Unhappy has been 10 to 20 points higher among the poor, often reaching as high as 30 percent.

Classifying respondents into those from Severely Hungry, Moderately Hungry, and nonhungry families, and taking all the data over 2001-19, the fraction Unhappy is almost always highest in the first group (even reaching 50 percent) and lowest in the third group (from 5-10 percent). The Moderately Hungry, who experienced hunger only once or a few times, have less unhappiness than the Severely Hungry, who went through it often or always.

Now, how many people are going to be economically dislocated by the government’s lockdown policy? How many of these are likely to be poor/hungry people? On the other hand, how many people are likely to be saved from the COVID-19 illness on account of the lockdown policy? These are what the technocrats should be calculating, rather than what might happen to the growth of the GNP.

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