Rabat – Morocco ranked among the countries with “the lowest positive experiences,” in a recent report on global emotional health from American analytics and advisory firm Gallup.
The “Gallup Global Emotions 2022” report provides an overview of the most recent measurements of people’s daily positive and negative experiences as the COVID-19 pandemic lasted through its second year.
According to the report, “Gallup’s positive and negative experience indexes measure life’s intangibles — feelings and emotions — which traditional economic indicators such as GDP were never intended to capture.”
Morocco ranked among the countries with the lowest positive experiences with an index score of 60, similar to Georgia, India, Sierra Leone, and Ukraine. Algeria, Bangladesh, and Jordan followed with a score of 58.
According to Gallup’s negative experience index, the world was “a slightly sadder, more worried and more stressed-out place than it was the year before.”
Latin American countries topped the list of countries where adults report a high level of positive emotions on a daily basis. Panama topped the ranking with an index score of 85 while Afghanistan recorded the lowest score of 32.
The report analyzed data from nearly 127,000 interviews with adults in 122 countries and areas in 2021 and early 2022, finding that poverty, bad communities, hunger, loneliness and the scarcity of good work are significant contributors to the rise of global unhappiness.
Gallup polled adults to see if they had five negative experiences the day before the survey. Around 40% of adults said they experienced a lot of worry or stress, and slightly more than 30% experienced a lot of physical pain. More than a fourth experienced sadness and some also reported experiencing anger.
In terms of poverty and global hunger Gallup found that “two billion people live on insufficient incomes, and another two billion are so unhappy with where they live.”
Gallup also emphasized the pandemic’s role in the rise of loneliness, stating that “330 million adults go at least two weeks without talking to a single friend or family member,” and that a fifth of all adults “do not have a single person they can count on for help.”
The study also highlighted the correlation between negative emotions and civil unrest, noting an “exponential” increase in 2020, with 15,000 protests estimated globally.
Gallup argues that policymakers must explore the root causes of the unprecedented negative emotions and “focus on the drivers of a great life.”
Read Also: New Report Says Morocco Enjoys Positive Reputation Worldwide
