The Relationship between Happiness and Economic Development in KSA: Study of Jazan Region

It is generally assumed that happiness is a major source of motivation. Though economic growth remains the main goal of all nations, nowadays a society with happy people is an objective to aim at. From this raises the issue of the relationship between happiness and economic growth.

In this paper, researchers try to find how people’s happiness influences GDP and economic development. But before that they focused on the question of how happiness is achieved. In order to do so, we start by directly asking Jazan’s habitants through a survey about the source of their subjective well-being and what themselves say about what makes them happy. Then how do these sources of happiness influence their economic performance and participation in GDP growth. The sample’s answers have been formed according to the quintuple likert scale. We used the statistical technique of Cronbach’s Alpha to measure the credibility of the sample’s answers.

Researchers used the analytical descriptive methodology in order to analyze all collected data. Results show that social factors are the most important factors drivers of happiness and therefore influencing positively individual’s contribution in economic development of Jazan region. However, economic factors and political factors show that social factors are the main sources of happiness for our sample leading to a better economic development.