Ireland

Happy now? Ireland becoming a more unhappy country, says global survey

Ireland has fallen from 13th to 17th place in the rankings of the annual World Happiness Report

Ireland has fallen from 13th to 17th place in the rankings of the annual World Happiness Report. Illustration: iStock

Ronan McGreevy
Wed Mar 20 2024 - 08:28

Finland retains its place as the happiest country in the world with Ireland falling three places to 17th, according to a global survey.

The World Happiness Report shows Ireland slipping in the ranks falling from 13th in 2022 to 14th last year and now 17th.

Those under 30 are the unhappiest in Ireland and rank 21st happiest in the world; the happiest cohort in Ireland are those between 45 and 59 (16th in the world).

The top 10 happiest nations are made up of Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia.

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The report is compiled from the Gallup World Poll, which surveys around 1,000 people in each country and asks them to rank themselves from 0 (most unhappy) to 10. GDP per capita, life expectations, social supports and freedom to make life choices were also factored into the global survey.

The trend is for eastern European countries to catch up or even to surpass western European countries in terms of happiness. Czechia, Lithuania and Slovenia are at positions 18, 19 and 21, respectively, with the United States and Germany falling from 15 and 16 last year to 23 and 24 this year.

For those under 30, happiness levels are now equal in both halves of Europe. For those ever 60, the gap between the two halves of Europe is about half of what it was in 2006-2010.

Those born before 1965 (boomers and their predecessors) have life evaluations significantly higher than those born after 1980 (millennials and Gen Z).

For life evaluations, the Gallup World Poll asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a 0.

Within each generation, life evaluations rise with age for those in the older generations and fall with age for the younger ones, with little age effect for those in between.

The survey shows a great deal of unhappiness in young people between the ages of 15 and 24 in the United Kingdom, across Europe, the United States and Australia.

While not all teenagers and young adults are suffering, a large and growing number cannot cope with being left adrift with few qualifications on an economic sea that is more testing with each passing year.

Social media is believed to play a part in driving down self esteem and robbing young people of their wellbeing. But it is the lack of education, skills training and affordable housing that underpins the decline in the positive outlook traditionally displayed in surveys by those broadly fitting the gen Z age group, according to the report.

The report found young people are becoming more like their beleaguered parents, who have always reported themselves to be exhausted and weighed down by life’s cares.

University is less of a guarantee of financial and psychological wellbeing, and those that do not go into higher education are left to fend for themselves with only limited access to apprenticeships and further education courses that might lift their social standing, income and self-respect, the report says.

As the UK Intergenerational Foundation charity said in response to the report: “Young adults are being hit from all sides by a toxic combination of government policy, a housing affordability crisis, stagnating wages and a high cost of living.

“No wonder their generation is experiencing unprecedented levels of mental ill-health as their futures look so bleak.” – Additional reporting: the Guardian

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times

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