Structural Relationships among the Factors Affecting Adolescents’ Happiness in OECD countries: Application of QCA method

This study aims to investigate the causal relationships among the key factors related to education that affect the happiness of adolescents, to find combinations of conditions explaining adolescents’ happiness in OECD countries, and to put forward policy implications whereby OECD countries may raise their levels of adolescent happiness. The HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children) score of adolescents of OECD countries was selected as an indicator for happiness, and some independent variables such as per capita GDP, per capita educational expenditure amount were included in the subject of analysis. QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) method was employed for the analysis. Research results show that there are six configurations and three selected prime implicants explaining the high happiness score of adolescents in OECD countries. Three prime implicants are TEPC*GDP*PUPTEA, tee*GDP*PRIVATEXP, and tee*tepc*gdp*privatexp. In other words, while there are a number of further steps required to obtain a more parsimonious expression, in this research the suggestions posed by the solution are six configurations and three prime implicants explaining adolescents’ happiness in OECD countries. The first prime implicant is a combination of TEPC(high total per capita expenditure on education)*GDP(high per capita gdp)*PUPTEA(high ratio of students to teaching staff). The second implicant is a combination of tee(low total expenditure on education)*GDP(high per capita gdp)*PRIVATEXP(high ratio of private source expenditure on education to gdp). Finally, the third implicant is a combination of tee(low total expenditure on education)*tepc(low total per capita expenditure on education)*gdp(low per capita gdp)*privatexp(low ratio of private source expenditure on education to gdp). It is important to note that the results presented in this paper are illustrative only and need to be investigated in a more comprehensive perspective. Rather than being a limitation of QCA, consideration of alternative causal configurations are appropriate for the complexity of adolescents’ happiness.