Flourishing in the Philippines: Country-specific insights from the Global Flourishing Study
Filipinos report higher levels of character strengths like hope and love, as well as greater life satisfaction, compared to global averages, even while facing lower financial stability.
Regular attendance at religious services is strongly and consistently linked to higher levels of well-being across multiple dimensions for Filipinos.
While some differences in well-being exist across gender, age, and education levels among Filipinos, these disparities are generally modest in size.
The path to a good life is not universal, as the Filipino experience shows that community and faith can matter more than money.
This research matters because most well-being studies have focused on Western, wealthy nations — leaving us with an incomplete picture of what a good life looks like for most of the world's people. The Philippines, a developing, collectivistic, and deeply religious country, tells a different story. It shows that high levels of love, hope, and gratitude can exist alongside financial struggle, and that the things people value most — family, community, faith — may matter more than money. For policymakers and public health leaders, these findings suggest that supporting well-being in places like the Philippines means more than improving economic conditions, though that remains important. It also means protecting and strengthening the social and spiritual structures that people already rely on — faith communities, family networks, and traditions of mutual aid. For the scientific community, this study is a reminder that flourishing cannot be understood through a purely Western lens.
The path to a good life is not universal, as the Filipino experience shows that community and faith can matter more than money.
What does it mean to live well in a country where family comes first, faith runs deep, and money is often tight? This study looked at over 5,000 Filipino adults to understand how people in the Philippines experience different parts of a good life — from happiness and health to meaning, character, relationships, and financial security. The findings paint a surprising picture.
In the Philippines, a rich life is measured not by what you own, but by the strength of your faith and your bonds with others.
Compared to people in 21 other countries worldwide, Filipinos reported some of the highest levels of character strengths — ranking first in both delayed gratification and love, and near the top in hope, gratitude, and doing good for others. They also reported higher-than-average life satisfaction, happiness, and social connectedness. Yet financial security fell below the global average — a reminder that feeling good about life doesn't always mean feeling secure about money. When researchers looked at different groups within the Philippines, most differences were small.
Women tended to report more gratitude and love, while men felt more financially secure. Younger adults felt more satisfied with life, while the oldest adults felt less socially connected. But one pattern stood out above the rest: people who attended religious services weekly or more scored higher across nearly every dimension of well-being compared to those who never attended. In a country where about 80% of the population identifies as Catholic, this finding shows how deeply faith communities are part of everyday Filipino life — not just as spiritual practice, but as social support, shared meaning, and a sense of belonging.
Filipinos' approval of their government was 1.6 times higher than the average across all 22 countries surveyed in the study.
Over half of Filipinos attend religious services at least weekly, a practice strongly associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, purpose, and social connectedness.
Filipino men reported higher financial security than women, with an average score 0.57 points greater on a 10-point scale.
The vast majority of the population, 93%, identifies as Christian, which provides context for the strong link between religious attendance and well-being.
For Jewish adults in Israel, greater religious observance is consistently linked to better mental health—from less depression to more happiness.
Surprisingly, difficult childhoods—including experiences of abuse or feeling like an outsider—can lead to a greater engagement with sacred texts in adulthood.
In some countries, having poor health as a child is linked to experiencing more inner peace as an adult.
Attending religious services just once a week as a child nearly doubles your likelihood of praying or meditating daily as an adult.
Surprisingly, difficult childhood experiences like abuse or feeling like an outsider can make a person more likely to believe in life after death.
What if childhood poverty, trauma, and family breakups have almost no universal link to adult religious belief?