Greyling, TalitaRossouw, StephanieBurger, Martijn2026-04-072026-04-072026-04-02Social Indicators Research, ISSN: 0303-8300 (Print); 1573-0921 (Online), Springer, 182(39). doi: 10.1007/s11205-026-03842-80303-83001573-0921http://hdl.handle.net/10292/20870While positive affect and life evaluation are positively correlated in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), their relationship is much weaker than in Western countries, suggesting a misalignment between how people feel and how they judge their lives, a pattern we refer to as the African well-being paradox. Using Gallup World Poll microdata (2013–2024) covering 39 SSA and 27 Western countries, we construct an individual-level measure of this misalignment: the difference between positive affect and life evaluation scores (the PA-LE balance) and analyse its determinants using eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). Our results show that the PA-LE balance in SSA is both higher and more widely dispersed than in Western countries. More than two-thirds of individuals in SSA exhibit a positive balance and can be classified as “cheerfully discontented”. In contrast, Western countries exhibit a narrower, more symmetric distribution. Across regions, optimism and negative affect account for the largest share of predictive attribution. The distinct SSA pattern arises not from different drivers, but from their configuration: comparatively low economic optimism coexists with relatively low negative affect. This suggests that structural constraints shape life evaluations, while relational and social resources sustain positive daily experiences, creating a situation of “cheerful discontent”.Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.380119 Welfare economics4611 Machine learning1402 Applied Economics1503 Business and Management1608 SociologySocial Psychology35 Commerce, management, tourism and services38 Economics44 Human societyLife evaluationpositive affectAfricaXGBoostSHAPJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s11205-026-03842-8