Why Does Christmas Feel Sadder Over Time? An Economic—Relational Theory of the Christmas Paradox in Developing Societies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55578/jedip.2605.007Keywords:
Christmas paradox, relational utility, happiness economics, behavioral economics , cultural economics , PhilippinesAbstract
Despite rising income and material abundance, many individuals report declining happiness during Christmas (Pasko), particularly in developing societies. This paper addresses this paradox by proposing the GAMAW–GAPOH Model (Pasko Paradox Model), a culturally grounded economic framework that reconceptualizes festive well-being as a balance between relational capital (GAMAW) and burdens and losses (GAPOH) rather than as an outcome of consumption alone. Departing from neoclassical utility theory, the model formally integrates social presence, cognitive burdens, and accumulated relational loss into a multidimensional utility function. Pasko Utility (PU) is specified as where denotes consumption, relational connectedness, cognitive burdens, and accumulated relational loss, with parameter restrictions and . To operationalize festive well-being, the study introduces a normalized Pasko Contentment Index (PCI):
bounded between 0 and 1. Using 384 individuals from Lagonoy Gulf, Philippines, results show that while consumption increases monotonically across income groups, both PU and PCI peak at middle-income levels and decline sharply at higher income brackets. This decline is driven by weakened relational connectedness and rising work-related burdens and accumulated losses, which outweigh the diminishing marginal utility of increased consumption. Individuals in the highest income group exhibit the lowest PCI despite the highest festive spending. The findings demonstrate that Christmas functions as a relational public good, not a private consumption good. Festive well-being depends primarily on who is present, the weight of adult burdens, and the loss of important relationships, rather than on income or spending alone. The GAMAW–GAPOH Model thus offers a culturally sensitive and analytically rigorous explanation for declining festive happiness amid economic progress.
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Data Availability Statement
The datasets supporting the conclusions of this research are publicly accessible through established data repositories. The primary dataset, titled “Dataset on Measuring the Unmeasurable Multidimensional Rural Poverty for Economic Development: Analysis from the Poorest District of the Poorest Province in the Poorest Region of Luzon, Philippines,” compiled by Onsay and Rabajante (2023), is archived in Mendeley Data (Version 1) and is available at:
https://doi.org/10.17632/s76nh7dm4v.1
An additional dataset, “Measuring the Unmeasurable Multidimensional Socio-Economic Deprivations and Poverty Predictions: Indigenous People Datasets for Econometrics, Machine Learning, and Quantitative Social Science Modeling,” developed by the same authors, is hosted in the Harvard Dataverse (Version 2) and can be accessed at:
https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QSZKUP
These datasets contain processed socioeconomic indicators appropriate for econometric analysis, machine learning applications, and quantitative social science research. Data involving personal perceptions and self-assessed measures are not publicly released to safeguard participant confidentiality but may be provided upon reasonable request to the corresponding author, subject to ethical approval and data-sharing agreements.
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