Happiness index high on inauguration day

South Africa's gross national happiness index on Saturday‚ the day Cyril Ramaphosa was inaugurated as president‚ remained high‚ unlike on other Saturdays.

This is according to wellbeing economists Prof Talita Greyling, of the University of Johannesburg, and Dr Stephanie Rossouw, of New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology.

The happiness index was launched in SA on April 30‚ a week before the May 8 national elections.

The index was launched in New Zealand on May 14 and in Australia two days later, to monitor sentiment around the elections in those countries.

The index is based on sentiment analysis of the daily tweets of South Africans‚ from which a happiness score is derived.

The scores are between 1 and 10‚ with 5 being neutral – neither happy nor unhappy.

Greyling and Rossouw found that the happiness index was closely related to political events.