Babies are said to bring happiness and satisfaction to the lives of parents, alongside positive changes to psychological well-being, and create a nurturing environment for all involved.
But with more and more parents sharing their joy online, from first steps to potty training, could we reveal in which countries we can find the happiest parents according to the images of them on the internet?
In order to find out, we’ve analysed thousands of pictures of parents from across the globe and used an AI emotion recognition tool to detect their happiness levels, giving a score out of 100. We have then ranked these according to the country they live in to find out where in the world the happiest mothers, fathers and parents live.
The countries with the happiest mothers
Everyone knows that Mum knows best, so of course that is where our analysis started. When it comes to the happiest mothers across Europe and the US, it’s Ireland that comes in first place, scoring 71.5 out of 100, with Scotland just 0.2 behind at 71.3 out of 100.
The countries with the happiest fathers
Our analysis of 9,000 images from 43 European countries and the US brought English dads out on top with a happiness score of 63 out of 100. That’s 2.3 ahead of Scotland who make second place again with 60.7, and Ireland comes in third with 59 points.
Interestingly, the whole of Great Britain made it into the top ten with Wales in sixth place, scoring 52.6 out of 100.
Where do you find the biggest happiness gap between parents?
We also wanted to understand the level of difference in happiness between parents/mothers and fathers. We did this by looking at the largest percentage difference between each parent's happiness score per country.
It’s parents in Northern Ireland who are most disparate with an 88.1% difference: with the happiness score of mothers here nearly double that of local fathers at 65.8 out of 100.
Interestingly, England had the smallest gap with a 3.6% difference between the two parents revealing that according to online images, they are most similar when it comes to happiness scores.
The countries with the happiest parents overall
When it comes to the happiest parents overall, Scotland takes first place with 66 out of 100 on the happiness score - a whopping 22% over the study’s average. Close behind is Ireland with 65.2, and England with 64.1 points out of 100.
Throughout this analysis, it is easy to forget that images shared online are carefully curated. Even with this insightful investigation into parents’ perception of happiness online, remember that you’re seeing people’s best side and there are tiny humans developing within all of this - and that is never going to be plain sailing!
Just remember we’re here to help, especially when it comes to their potty-training journey. From prep to practice with GoTime.
Methodology
Our analysis considered a total of 9,000 images depicting parents across 43 European countries and the US sourced through Google Images.
To find these images we used relevant search queries such as ‘selfie of mother in France’ ‘selfie of father in Belgium’ for each country. Each image was then analysed with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Rekognition API to analyse each image's emotional score, focusing on a happiness rating out of 100.
The AI tool works by scanning clear photos of faces and detecting the level of emotion present with a score out of 100.
The images were found and analysed by the relevant tools on September 12th 2023.
