There are many ways to assess how Ireland is doing – seeing changes over time, comparing Ireland internationally and also looking more deeply at intergenerational differences and differences by sex within Ireland. In this section of the Well-being Information Hub we attempt to provide overarching real-time answers to the question: “How is Ireland doing?”.
The graphic below provides a snap shot of Ireland's Well-being using statistical comparisons over time or comparisons from a variety of data sources.
Given the range of many different objective and subjective measures of Well-being, it is very difficult to bring them together into one composite measure of how Ireland is doing. The Hub contains 35 different indicators, which in turn can be analysed by areas like age and sex. Individuals will, depending on their own experiences, naturally assign different weights to the relative importance of each of the Well-being themes.
In this section of the Information Hub we assess change over the long-term (mainly 5 years). The latest update provides a broadly positive picture of life in Ireland, with the majority of indicators improving over the long-term. Areas of life that are improving include: Subjective Well-being, for example population rating their overall life satisfaction as high and Work and Job Quality, for example mean weekly earnings. While areas showing dis-improvement over time include Environment, Climate and Biodiversity, for example pollution, grime and other environmental problems. See table below.
Change is assessed mainly over a 5 year basis in the table below, however trend information for each indicator can be accessed by clicking on the relevant indicator.
| X-axis label | Positive change | No change | Negative change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longterm change | 14 | 11 | 10 |
The Well-being Hub is a part of broader cross-Government work to develop and promote a well-being approach to policy-making and analysis. An overarching Well-being Framework for Ireland has been developed by Government, which clearly defines all the important elements for collective Well-being in Ireland. The CSO’s Well-being Information Hub flows from this overarching Framework.
