Central Statistics Office Central Statistics Office

FOUR IN TEN people have said that their life satisfaction levels are low, the lowest ever recorded in a Central Statistics Office survey.

The survey of 1,621 people showed that more than four in 10 (41.7%) of people rated their overall life satisfaction levels as low.

According to the CSO, this is the highest low life satisfaction rate ever captured in a CSO survey, compared to 2013, with people suffering the fallout of the 2007 financial crisis when it dropped to 15.3%.

“The findings of the survey serve to highlight the impact that COVID-19 is having on well-being,” said senior statistician, Gerry Reilly.

Almost six in 10 (57.1%) people have said that their mental health has been impacted negatively by the pandemic.

Young people are being hit especially hard by the pandemic, with three in four (74.4%) people aged 18-34 saying their mental health had been impacted negatively. This compares to less than one in three (32.4%) people aged 70 and over.

Female respondents were more likely to report that their mental wellbeing had declined, with more than six in 10 (62.4%) saying it had. This compares to just over half of all male respondents, at 51.7%.

The number of people feeling depressed “all or most of the time” has continued to climb as waves of Covid-19 have passed. The initial wave in April 2020 saw 5.5% of respondents feeling depressed “all or most of the time”, before climbing to 11.5% during the second wave in November.

This month, it has risen again to 15.1% of all respondents. Analysis by age shows one in 5 (20.5%) of young people feeling depressed “all or most of the time”, compared to 5.7% of respondents aged 70 and over.

17% of all female respondents said that they felt lonely “most or all the time” in the four-weeks before they were surveyed, compared to 9.2% of male respondents. Renters were twice as likely to feel lonely compared to those in owner-occupied housing.

Compliance

Three in four (75.1%) respondents rated their compliance with Covid-19 regulations as “high”, which is 10 percentage points higher than it was in November 2020, when just 65.2% rated their compliance as high.

High compliance was at its lowest in June (59.9%) and at it’s highest in April (80.6), one month after Covid-19 restrictions were implemented.

One in four (26.4) people are now thinking that the current Level 5 response to the pandemic is “not sufficient”, compared to one in 10 (10.2%) in November 2020. 60.4% believe that the response is “appropriate”, while only 13.1% see them as “too extreme”.

Currently, six in 10 (61.4%) people believe that once current restrictions are eased, there will be similar restrictions implemented again later this year.