Chart of the Day: Second Most Stressed Nation?

Chart of the Day: Second Most Stressed Nation?

Statistics about national happiness or stress should be taken with a pinch of salt since emotions are subjective and can be highly conditional and unpredictable to be quantified, and thereby, measured.

Nevertheless, here is a curious finding from the Gallup report on Global Stress as cited by Statista: The second most stressed nation in the world is the Philippines!

Stress comes in many different forms depending on where you live. In parts of the developing world, it can range from the threat of armed conflict to an unstable food supply while in more advanced economies, it can stem from negative thoughts about a difficult day in the office to difficulty paying bills. As part of its 2019 Global Emotions Report, Gallup set out to gauge stress levels in 143 countries, finding that just over a third pf people said they experienced "a lot of stress" the day before the polling was carried out. 

Given its recent economic hardships, it hardly comes as a surprise that stress levels remain especially high in Greece and 59 percent of people surveyed there said they are under a lot of stress. The Philippines and Tanzania had the second-highest stress levels with 58 and 57 percent respectively. The U.S. is also among the ten most stressed out nations on the planet with 55 percent of its population saying they experienced a lot of stress yesterday. That is the same share as three other countries - Albania, Iran and Sri Lanka. 

Over the years, previous editions of the report found lower stress levels among Americans. For example, in 2006, 46 percent said they were under a lot of stress, a number that grew to 47 percent in 2010. Stress levels grew steaduly to 53 percent in 2014 before dropping below 50 percent in 2017. The research found that younger Americans between the ages of 15 and 49 are the most stressed, along with the poorest 20 percent of the population.

Isn’t the Philippines supposedly been booming economically and financially? Isn’t the administration basking in popularity? So why the world’s second most stressed nation?  

Or, which may be close to being accurate, Gallup’s Survey or local media? Could geopolitics be behind these?