Irish people buck the EU trend by getting happier as they age

Plenty of Irish people may be unhappy with their financial situation, but we are among the most educated; we consider ourselves very healthy; and our satisfaction with our lot seems to improve as we get older.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, has put together a comprehensive study, ‘Quality of life in Europe’, looking at how various factors, including health, work, education, and financial status impact on our lives.

The survey data was taken in 2013 when the country was only emerging from recession. It found 49.2% of Irish people had a “low satisfaction with their financial situation”, 14.1% were at risk of poverty, 9.9% were classed as severely materially deprived, and 36.8% were making ends meet with difficulty or great difficulty.

On a more positive note, only 12% of Irish residents had a low level of satisfaction with their homes, a relatively low percentage by international comparison.

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One in five workers in Ireland were found to have a low level of job satisfaction and one in 10 were having to work under temporary contracts. The job dissatisfaction percentage was comparable to the likes of Britain (22.4%) and Spain (21.5%). However, the dissatisfaction rate was much lower in the likes of Finland (4.7%), Netherlands (5.4%), and Norway (7.2%).

“Ireland was the country most affected by low work intensity (23.9%), while its share of workers reporting a low job satisfaction (20%) only slightly exceeded the EU average,” the authors of the Eurostat report said.

When it came to education, Ireland’s performance was mixed: 72.7% reported not knowing any foreign language — in Luxembourg this figure was just 1.1%. However, the percentage of people who had graduated from tertiary education here was 38.7% — the highest of any of the surveyed countries.

Irish residents assessed their health status the least negatively (3.6% were dissatisfied), followed by the Maltese (3.9%), Swedish (4.0%), Dutch (5.4%), Finnish (6.7%), and Cypriot (6.9%) residents.

Our good health may well have contributed to one of the highest life expectancies at 81.1 years.

Overall, Eurostat found Irish people had relatively high life satisfaction compared to our European neighbours. Unlike many of the other nations, where life satisfaction decreased with age, Irish people’s happiness with their lot appeared to increase as they got older, with those aged over 65 apparently the most happy.

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