On a Japanese Subjective Well-Being Indicator Based on Twitter data

TL;DR

This paper introduces the SWB-J index, a novel Twitter-based subjective well-being measure for Japan, analyzing its dimensions and cultural differences compared to Italy, and exploring how economic and health factors influence well-being.

Contribution

It presents the first Twitter-based subjective well-being index for Japan, incorporating multiple dimensions and comparing it cross-culturally with Italy, using structural models to analyze influencing factors.

Findings

The SWB-J index captures multidimensional well-being beyond economic and health factors.

Economic and health conditions influence the well-being index but are only part of the overall picture.

Cultural differences affect the structure and interpretation of well-being indicators.

Abstract

This study presents for the first time the SWB-J index, a subjective well-being indicator for Japan based on Twitter data. The index is composed by eight dimensions of subjective well-being and is estimated relying on Twitter data by using human supervised sentiment analysis. The index is then compared with the analogous SWB-I index for Italy, in order to verify possible analogies and cultural differences. Further, through structural equation models, a causal assumption is tested to see whether the economic and health conditions of the country influence the well-being latent variable and how this latent dimension affects the SWB-J and SWB-I indicators. It turns out that, as expected, the economic and health welfare is only one aspect of the multidimensional well-being that is captured by the Twitter-based indicator.