Introduction

Research Question

Objective of the study

The objective of this study is to investigate the determinants of life in the United States.
After analyzing the effects of different factors on life, relative importance may be given to
those factors according to their contribution in the life style.
2. Data and Methodology
I. Data
A sample period of 30 years has been selected for this study for the period of 1975-2005 with
annual frequency. Depending on the availability of data we have selected the possible sample
period to avoid the small sample bias. Data on all the variables have been collected from
Samples. Six variables have been selected for this study. Is life exciting or dull has been used as
dependent variable to represent the life in United States. Whereas, happiness level, region, work
hard, education and age have been used as independent variables. The description of variables
has been given below.
Dependent Variable:

Independent Variables:

Quality of Data:
It is really tough to comment on quality of the secondary data. However, the above
definitions of the variables show that the variables measure the concepts which we intended to
measure. Given that the data have been collected according to the above definitions of the
variables, the data used in this study is valid for the purpose of analysis.
II. Methodology
To present the overall picture of the variables the cross tabulation & Regression are used. A
table of cross tabulation is a part of the study. This table provides the General happiness level.
The table of symmetric measures provides the null hypothesis which states that the said variables
are not correlated to each other. This table is also helpful to check the problem of multi-co
linearity.
Since the objective of this study is to check the dependence of the life on different factors as
stated above, in this study ordinary least square (OLS) method of multiple-regression is used to
estimate the effects of those factors on the life. The objective of the regression in this study is to
find such an equation which could be used to find the predicted value of the General happiness
level (GHL) Age of Respondent (AOR) Region of the united states (ROUS) Highest year of
school Completed (HYSC) To work hard (TWH):
ILED = β 0 + β 1GHLt + β 2AORt + β 3ROUSt + β 4HYSCt + β 5TWHt + Et
(1)
As specified in the above equation ILED is the dependent variable and other five
variables are independent. Since all the variables are time series’, subscript t denotes the time
period. β 0 is the constant term. β 1, β 2, β 3, β 4, and β 5 are the partial regression coefficients of
the independent variables. A partial regression coefficient represents the change in dependent
variable, ceteris paribus, due to one unit change in independent variable. Et is the error term.

Justification of the Method:

This study has used the descriptive statistics to present the overall picture of the variables.
For the initial look on the relationship between different variables the Cross tabulation is used.
This matrix shows all the possible three dimension plots of the variables. This table is used to
view the very, pretty and not too happy level of the variables.
The method of multiple-regression is used to estimate the effect of multiple predictors on
the predicted. Considering the objective of this study the multiple-regression analysis is used in
this study to estimate the partial regression coefficients of the independent variables and their
statistical significance. We have used the method of multiple-regression because there are five
independent variables.
3.Empirical Findings
In this part of the study case processing summary have been shown and interpreted. Table
3.1 presents the cases which show the General happiness level of the variables.
Table 3.1

Case Processing Summary

Cases
Valid Missing Total
N Percent N Percent N Percent
Is Life Exciting or Dull *
971 64.0% 546 36.0% 1517 100.0%
General Happiness

In the above table the valid shows the 64.0% of overall value of life on happiness level which is
greater than missing value of 36.0% as shown above.
Table 3.2

Is Life Exciting or Dull * General Happiness Cross tabulation

Count
General Happiness Total
Very Happy Pretty Happy Not Too Happy
Is Life Exciting or Dull Exciting 195 218 21 434
Routine 98 338 61 497
40
Dull 2 12 26

Total 295 568 108 971

Table 3.2 shows that the happiness level. If life is Exciting then its happiness level is Pretty
Happy because this level is better than very happy and very happy is better than Not too happy.
And pretty happy is also better level in Routine life but on the Dull, life is not too happy as
shown in above table.
Table 3.3

Symmetric Measures
Asymp. Std.
Value Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.
Ordinal by Ordinal Kendall's tau-b .327 .029 10.876 .000
N of Valid Cases 971
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Life style and general happiness level both are the ordinal variables. In order to find out
relationship between these to variables. We have applied kendoll’s tou-b test the value
of test statistics is 0.33 at the significant level of 0.00. In this case the we have specified
null and alternative by hypothesis as fallows.

Ho: There is no relationship b/w general happiness level and lifestyle.

H1: There is an association b/w general happiness level and lifestyle.

Since the significance level (0.00) is less than 0.05 we reject Ho and conclude that there
is an association b/w the variable is significant (reliable) from the value of the text
statistics 0.33 conclude the relationship b/w these variable is moderate.

Regression

Table 3.4

Variables Entered/Removedb
Variables
Model Variables Entered Removed Method
1 To Work Hard,
Region of the
United States,
General
Happiness, . Enter
Highest Year of
School
Completed, Age
of Respondenta
a. All requested variables entered.
b. Dependent Variable: Is Life Exciting or Dull
 Table 3.5

Model Summary
Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Model R R Square Square Estimate
1 .349a .122 .112 .516
a. Predictors: (Constant), To Work Hard, Region of the United States,
General Happiness, Highest Year of School Completed, Age of
Respondent

Necessary statistics have been shown in table 3.5 . The value of the coefficient of
determination ( R ) is 0.349. The value of the adjusted coefficient of determination
(adj. R2) is 0.112, which shows that one hundred and twelve percent
variations in life are explained by the variations in independent variables.
The std. error of the estimate value is up to 0.5 percent so it is accepted.

Table 3.6

ANOVAb
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 16.675 5 3.335 12.509 .000a
Residual 120.504 452 .267
Total 137.179 457
a. Predictors: (Constant), To Work Hard, Region of the United States, General Happiness, Highest
Year of School Completed, Age of Respondent
b. Dependent Variable: Is Life Exciting or Dull
 Table 3.7

Coefficientsa
Standardized
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) 1.721 .183 9.405 .000
General Happiness .226 .039 .257 5.778 .000
.588
Age of Respondent .001 .001 .025 .542
.495
Region of the United States -.020 .029 -.030 -.684

Highest Year of School .000

-.038 .008 -.210 -4.614
Completed
To Work Hard -.020 .024 -.035 -.803 .422
a. Dependent Variable: Is Life Exciting or Dull

Table 3.7 presents the results of the regression analysis. The results show that
General happiness and Age the independent variables significantly affect the
lifestyle except region, Education, word hard as shown by the values of the t-
statistic and the corresponding P-values. T-test is used to test the significance of the
individual partial regression coefficients. Null hypothesis in this test is set as the
partial regression coefficient is zero. This test shows that the coefficients of all the
predictors except Age are statistically significant at less than five percent level of
significance. All of the significant coefficients have the negative signs except
General Happiness and Age. The effect of the Region, education, and word hard on
the lifestyle is negative and it is statistically significant. The standard error of all the
coefficient is less than 0.5 but the general happiness level is better than all the
variables. So ho reject all the variables except the region because it is greater than
0.5 and it is accepted.

4. Summary and Conclusion

This study has investigated the determinants of lifestyle in United States for
the period 1975-2005 in the case of Pakistan. After observing the cross tabulation
and ordinary least square method of multiple-regression has been used for this
purpose. The lifestyle has been used as dependent variable as the representative of
lifestyle in united states. Yet, the effect of region, education and work hard on life is
found to be negative and statistically significant.

Although this study has included many important determinants in the analysis on
the basis of theoretical narrations, yet in future studies it would be useful to include
some other variables in the analysis as well.

References

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