How Happy are we? Measuring the well-being of Independent.ie and Belfast Telegraph readers
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How Happy are we? Measuring the well-being of Independent.ie and Belfast Telegraph readers By Mark Anielski (the Canadian happiness economist) Summer 2021
Contents 03–04 How happy are we? 04 What is happiness? 05 Ireland’s happiness has changed over time 06 Why measure well-being? 07 The impacts of the Covid pandemic on well-being. 08–12 How does well-being compare between South and North? 12–13 Who is most satisfied with life overall?
14–15 Well-being index by county. 16–17 Who are the happiest age group? 17–18 What makes the Irish happy? 19 What people love most about where they live? 20–21 Who is the happiest of all? 22–23 Does more money buy more happiness? 24 Resilience in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic
How Happy are we?
Measuring the well-being of Independent.ie
and Belfast Telegraph readers
By Mark Anielski
(the Canadian happiness economist)
Summer 2021
The first comprehensive wellbeing and happiness survey
of its kind was conducted across both the South and North
of Ireland between April 11 and April 26, 2021. Canadian
happiness economist Mark Anielski conducted the 35-question
well-being survey through the Independent and Belfast
Telegraph networks.
The survey provides rich insights into the soul of Independent.
ie readers across all four dimensions of mental, physical,
emotional, and spiritual well-being. The survey used an
indigenous framework for examination of well-being which is
also likely congruent with the ancient Celtic wisdom traditions
of a human being comprised of four aspects: mental, physical,
emotional and spiritual.
There were nearly 2,300 respondents (1,700+ from the South
and 450+ from the North) to the survey from under the age of 18
to over 75 years of age which represents a fair reflection of the
perceptions of the overall well-being of the people of the South
and North.
The well-being survey asked respondents 35 questions about
their feelings or perceptions of their current sense of wellbeing.
This provides a unique portrait of the ‘soul’ of Ireland. Each survey
respondent received their own Wellbeing Report (Figure 1) that
provided them with a comparative analysis of their perceptional
wellbeing compared with the average of all survey respondents.
03
Figure 1: Well-being survey individual report, sample
What is happiness?
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, defined happiness as the well-
being of the soul. To Aristotle, happiness is the meaning and the
purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. A
happy life, he said, resulted from a good birth, accompanied by
a lifetime of good friends, good children, health, wealth and a
contented old age and virtuous activity.
The Ireland well-being survey confirms this truth about
happiness. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the Irish are
happy, hopeful and full of joy with a strong sense of peace in
their souls.
04
Ireland’s happiness has
changed over time
Satisfaction with life in Ireland has declined slightly since the
first World happiness poll conducted by Gallup in 2006 (Figure
2). The most recent World happiness survey of 1,000 people from
both North and South conducted in June 2020, during the midst
of the Covid-19 pandemic, showed an average life satisfaction
score of 7.03 out on a scale of 0 to 10.
Figure 2: Life satisfaction for Ireland 2006-2020
05
The well-being survey conducted on behalf of the Independent.ie.
and the Belfast Telegraph in April of 2021 had a much larger sample
size than the Gallup happiness survey of Ireland in June 2020. The
Wellbeing Survey revealed lower level of overall life satisfaction
of 6.78 (out of 10 maximum), or 3.6% lower than June 2020. While
the Gallup survey results and the Independent/Belfast Telegraph
Wellbeing Surveys are not directly comparable, a lower life
satisfaction rating might point to the ongoing negative impacts of
the Covid-19 pandemic and lock downs.
Why measure well-being?
We are constantly bombarded by economic or financial indicators
of the markets and the economy. Census surveys are conducted
every five years in most nations. Yet, have you ever been asked how
you actually experience life, about your relationships with your
family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues? Or how you feel
about making enough money to meet your family’s needs, your
spirituality, feelings of being loved or the joy of your soul. These are
the kinds of common-sense questions that matter to most people’s
mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. This appears
to be the first time in Ireland’s history that these kinds of intuitive
questions have been asked.
Measuring subjective well-being or emotions is very important,
though emotions are very rarely surveyed. Canadian Happiness
Economist Prof. John Helliwell (one of the co-authors of the annual
World Happiness Report) has shown that emotions are a key
attribute of wellbeing measurement. Economic behaviour is not
simply driven by objective criterion but ultimately shaped by how
we perceive our state of well-being.
06
The impacts of COVID Pandemic
on well-being
For over a year the world has been collected gripped by the
Covid-19 pandemic. Economies have stalled, travel truncated,
and people forced to live their lives more locally. How has this
impacted wellbeing?
In June 2020 Gallup conducted their annual world happiness
survey in the midst of the Covid pandemic. The 2020 World
Happiness report released in March 2021 shows that most nations
have been remarkably resilient during the global pandemic.
Levels of life satisfaction have declined but only marginally
compared to 2019. The worlds’ top 15 happiest nations, which
include Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, The Netherlands,
Canada and Ireland, have sustained relatively high levels of life
satisfaction. Why have some countries fared better than others
during the Covid crisis?
The economic authors of the report, John Helliwell, Richard
Layard and Jeffrey Sachs, found that countries that have
weathered the Covid-19 pandemic in a resilient fashion tend to
be those where trust in institutions (governments) is high and
where female leadership is more predominant. The happiest
countries also have similar characteristics: relatively high levels
of household income, relatively low levels of inequality, high
levels of trust and belonging amongst each other and towards
institutions, and joy in nature.
The pandemic has taught us a lot about our feelings and
emotions and importance of relationships. Happiness is defined
by that strength of relationships we have with each other which
can be measured in terms of how we feel about relationships
with others and our trust of others. Trust is an important aspect
of a good life lived.
07
How does well-being compare
between North & South?
How does well-being compare between the Irish in the South
versus the North? Figure 3 shows the results of the 35 wellbeing
survey question results for both South and North. Visually,
the gap in key well-being indicators such as happiness, hope,
joy, energy for life, spirituality, peace of soul, quality of sleep,
exercise, work-life balance, and various levels of trust (family,
friends, work colleagues and local businesses) are very similar
between South and North.
Figure 3: Wellbeing index South vs. North
08
The overall well-being Index (a composite of all 35 wellbeing
questions out of 100 maximum possible points) for the North
was 69.6 or only 2.6% higher than the South which had an
average Wellbeing Index score of 67.6 (Figure 2). This suggests
that there is statistically very little difference in perceptional
well-being between the North and South. Life satisfaction,
on average, in the South (6.68 out of 10) is roughly 7.4% lower
than in the North (7.17). One of the most surprising results is
that the highest wellbeing score was for feeling comfortable in
one’s neighbourhood despite ethnicity, skin colour, age, gender,
sexual orientation, language or religion. This indicator average
8.53 (out of 10) in the South and 8.60 in the North. Surprisingly
levels of childhood well-being are higher than life satisfaction as
an adult, which differs from my previous survey work.
Figure 4 shows the distribution of the key question about how
satisfied people are with life overall. The distribution of life
satisfactions shows that roughly 9.0% of people in the South feel
unhappy with life (scores 1-3) compared with 7.3% in the North.
About 30.4% of people in the South feel moderately happy (scores
4-6) compared with 20.4% in the North. The good news is that
60.6% of people in the South are very happy with life (scores of
7-10) compared with 72.6% in the North.
09Figure 4: Life satisfaction (1-10) South vs. North
The following table 1 provides a summary of the percentage of
respondents who rated their wellbeing from 7 to 10 (that is, very
happy). In terms of childhood happiness, 80.7% of people of the
North rated their childhood as very happy compared with 77.7%
of people in the South. The highest wellbeing scores were for
people’s feelings of comfort in their community in spite of race,
sex or religion; 91.2% of respondents from the South feel very
comfortable in their communities compared with 92.0% of those
in the North. In terms of feelings towards the environment,
89.4% of those from the South feel very good about the state of
their natural environment while 90.7% of Northerners feel this
way.
The lowest scores were related to trust in national and local
governments; only 35.1% people in the North had relatively high
levels of trust in the national government, compared with 49.5%
of people in the South. Perceptions of government’s treatment
of nature (the environment) and a sense of belonging to the
community were also rated very low in the survey. This was true
for both North and South.
10Table 1: Percentage of respondents who were very happy with their well-being by well-being criterion % who are happy or very happy with life Republic of Ireland Northern Ireland Difference 7-10) Life Satisfaction 72.8% 81.8% -8.9% Happiness 73.8% 83.3% -9.5% Childhood 77.7% 80.7% -3.0% Joy 68.1% 75.1% -7.0% Hope 80.7% 76.9% 3.8% Positive about Myself 72.0% 77.6% -5.5% Free of Anxiety 66.9% 70.4% -3.5% Ability to Handle Problems 79.4% 83.1% -3.7% Energy for Life 86.9% 86.0% 0.9% Someone to Count On 78.1% 79.3% -1.2% Un-Loneliness 69.7% 76.2% -6.5% Soul Peace 70.9% 76.7% -5.7% Spirituality 84.4% 86.9% -2.4% Feel Loved 69.6% 75.6% -5.9% Health 71.4% 70.0% 1.4% Eating habits 67.0% 70.2% -3.3% Sleep 65.0% 60.9% 4.1% Exercise 63.7% 62.4% 1.3% Income Meets Needs 76.0% 80.7% -4.7% Financial Health 82.8% 84.4% -1.6% Work Satisfaction 72.1% 78.1% -6.0% Work-Life Balance 67.5% 72.9% -5.3% Purposeful Life 70.2% 79.1% -8.9% Belonging to Community 55.5% 60.9% -5.4% My Household Relations 83.9% 88.7% -4.8% Good Neighbours 73.1% 79.6% -6.4% Trust of Work Colleagues 73.7% 75.0% -1.3% Trust in Local Businesses 80.0% 80.0% 0.0% Trust in Local Government 49.5% 35.1% 14.4% Trust in National Government 48.8% 29.8% 19.1% Feeling Safe After Dark 64.7% 72.4% -7.8% Comfort in Neighbourhood 91.3% 92.0% -0.7% Feeling toward environment 89.4% 90.7% -1.3% Govt treatment of Nature 51.9% 52.9% -1.0% Feeling positive about climate change action 60.3% 59.8% 0.5% 11
Which well-being perceptions were the highest amongst all 35
questions? The top ranked subjective wellbeing life conditions
South vs. North were feeling comfortable in your neighbourhood,
energy for life, household relations, feelings towards the
environment and spiritual well-being. These top-rated well-being
conditions were almost identical in both the North and South.
Table 2: Top five-ranked well-being indicator scores
North South
Comfort in Neighbourhood Comfort in Neighbourhood
8.53 8.60
Energy for Life My Household Relations
8.24 8.39
My Household Relations Energy for Life
7.81 7.39
Feeling toward environment Feeling toward environment
7.81 7.96
Spirituality Spirituality
7.67 7.95
Who is the most satisfied with
life overall?
One of the most important questions in any happiness poll is the
level of satisfaction with life. Using the same question asked in the
World Happiness Poll conducted by Gallup, the survey results for
North and South Ireland provide interesting contrasts (Figure 5).
The North has higher overall levels of life satisfaction (72.2% are
happy or very happy) compared to 60.9% in the South. Men are
slightly happier overall than women, both in the North and South.
Older people, aged 65 and older, are the happiest age group. The
county of Roscommon in the South and Armagh in the North
have the highest life satisfaction levels amongst all counties.
12Figure 5: Life satisfaction, North vs. South
What contributes most to a happy life in Ireland? The survey
results show that there are five important feelings which
are the most statistically correlated to life satisfaction
(Table 3). Remarkably the people of the North and South
have similar attributes or feelings that contribute most to
their life satisfaction.
Table 3: Most Important factors impacting life satisfaction
South North
Self-rated happiness Self-rated happiness
Leading a purposeful life Feeling positive about oneself
Joy Joy
Not feeling lonely Not feeling lonely
Feeling positive about oneself Leading a purposeful life
13Well-being index by county
How does well-being compare across the various counties?
The following map (Figure 6) shows the average well-being
Index scores for each county in both the North and South, on
a scale of 1-100 maximum basis points. The results show that
there are relatively minor differences across all of Ireland from
a low of 64.0 in Louth (South) and 66.5 in Tyrone (North) to a
top wellbeing index of 70.7 in Antrim (North) and 72.6 in Roscoe
(South).
This rather equal distribution of perceptional well-being was
surprising. The well-being Index gap amongst the counties in
the South is only 11.8% while in the North the gap is even smaller
at only 5.8%.
14Figure 6: Well-being Index by County 15
Who are the happiest age group?
The happiest age group in the well-being Survey are the 65-74
and 75+ age group (Figure 7). This is consistent with happiness
research which shows that happiness follows a u-shape curve or
smiley-face curve through life; a person is happiest at a young age
(prior to 11 years of age), least happy about 45 years of age and then
increasingly happy from 55 years through to your 80s. This suggests
that like good wine, happiness seems to improve with age.
Figure 7: Life Satisfaction by Age, North vs. South
The Ireland well-being Index follows a similar pattern (Figure 8)
with overall mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being
improving with age.
16Figure 8: Well-being Index by age, North vs. South
What makes the Irish happy?
When asked in one or more words what makes us happy, the
overwhelming majority of people in the South and North said:
family, friends, love, being, nature, children, health and simply
being (Figure 9).
17Figure 9: What the North and South say contributes most to happiness
18What people love the most about
where they live
When asked what people like most about where they live, the South
said the being close to the sea, peace, close to nature and quiet.
Northern Irish said the things they love most about where they live
include the peace and quiet, the countryside, and being close to the
sea and people.
19Who is the happiest of all?
On the question of self-rated happiness, the well-being survey
found that men and women are equally happy in both the
South and North, though Northerners are happier overall than
the people of the South (Figure 10). Roscommon and Armagh
were again the happiest counties while Dublin-Southwest and
Fermanagh were the least happy amongst the counties in the
South and North, respectively.
Figure 10: Who is the happiest of all?
20In terms of the overall well-being Index using all 35 questions
about well-being, who was the happiest man and woman? And
what are their secrets to a happy life?
The person with the highest well-being Index score (97.7 out
of 100 maximum points) was a 55-64 year male, in the South,
married and living in Dublin North-West. His secret to a happy
life is ‘lack of contention.’
The happiest female in the South was a 65-74 year old woman,
living in Cork City, who scored 96.8 on her overall well-being
index; her secret to happiness is ‘good health.’
The happiest person in Northern Ireland is a 65-74 year old male
from Antrim who scored 96.0 on the well-being Index; his secret
to happiness is his ‘partner and dog’.
The happiest female in Northern Ireland is a 25-34 year old
married female from Down who scored 95.7 on the well-being
Index; her secret to happiness is her ‘baby.
21Does more money buy
more happiness?
The Beatles sang ‘money can’t buy you love.’ But does well-being
increase with more income?
The Ireland well-being survey Index data was compared with
average incomes of the counties in both Northern Ireland and the
South with some interesting results (Figure 11).
The well-being Index to €10,000 of income ratio is a rough proxy
for how much happiness is derived for each unity of income. The
higher the ratio, the higher the level of overall wellbeing for every
monetary unit of income.
While people in Dublin had the highest personal incomes at
roughly € 24,430 and roughly € 5,890 lower than Belfast incomes
(€18,542) Dubliners had a lower well-being to Income ratio than
top-ranked Donegal, Roscomm and Offaly. In the Noerth, Armagh
and Londonderry had the highest well-being to income ratios.
As a rule, households in the Republic have £3,300 more disposable
income annually than those in Northern Ireland.
The survey results also shows that feeling you have enough income
is a poor predictor of life satisfaction and joy of life. Feeling your
income meets your life needs ranked only 20th amongst 34 other
wellbeing variables in relationship to life satisfaction scores in the
South (and ranked 15th in the North).
22Figure 11: Well-being Index
per € 10,000 annual income
23Resilience in the face of the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Ireland’s first wellbeing survey of both the North and South
suggests that the Irish remain resilient and relatively hopeful in
spite of the crushing impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
High levels of hope, joy, the ability to handle problems, spiritual
well-being and self-rate health and knowing you have someone
to count on plus relatively low levels of anxiety, suggests that the
Irish spirit remains resilient in the face of adversity.
Low levels of trust in both local and national governments
particularly in the North might be a sign of the autonomy and
resilience many Irish feel.
Perhaps most surprising is the remarkable similarity in wellbeing
perceptions between the North and South and a common suite of
things that contribute most to people’s happiness.
Governments might consider measuring the feelings and emotions
of the people on a more regular basis, as part of a new form of
well-being census that measures the things that actually make life
worth living in Ireland.
The pandemic has taught us a lot about our feelings and emotions
and importance of relationships. Happiness is defined by that
strength of relationships we have with each other which can be
measured in terms of how we feel about these relationships and
the levels of trust we experience.
Once the pandemic is over, we might once again celebrate the
wisdom of the song whose lyrics read ‘the more we get together,
the happier we will be.’
In the mean-time we have many reasons to count our blessings.
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