As part of the annual SILC, respondents who are aged 16 years and over are asked how often they felt ‘downhearted or depressed’ or ‘lonely’ in the four weeks prior to their interview date. The responses are given on a 5-point scale, with answers ranging from ‘none of the time’ to ‘all of the time’.
Well-being - Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2025, published 25 March 2026, focused on life satisfaction and other well-being indicators.
As a result of only taking direct responses to the well-being indicator questions, the personal weights calculated as part of the core SILC survey had to be adjusted to account for attribute differences. This was achieved by adjusting the personal weights to account for non-direct response to the well-being questions. These adjusted weights were then calibrated to the estimated totals obtained by the core SILC survey to ensure consistency with the core SILC results.
Well-being questions in the SILC survey are asked by direct interview. High proxy rates for unemployed and student household members result in a lower number of observations with associated well-being variables for these groups. This negatively impacts on the robustness of well-being estimates for the unemployed and students.
Well-being figures published on the Eurostat website may differ from results in this release as there is no requirement to create separate weights for well-being indicators that are collected as part of the annual core SILC.
Further information on the SILC’s methodology is available in the Background Notes section.
The prevalence of feeling lonely increases the worse people perceived their general health.
Among those who reported ‘very good’ general health, 0.2% said they felt ‘lonely’ all the time. The proportion rose to 7.7% for those who reported having ‘bad or very bad’ general health. See figure 5.1 and table 5.1.
When considering those who felt lonely at least ‘Sometimes’, although no great change is seen within each general health status year on year, the gap between those feeling ‘lonely’ in ‘bad or very bad’ health compared to those in ‘very good’ health has been consistently closing since 2023. The at least ‘Sometimes’ category combines three response options: ‘All of the time’, ‘Most of the time’ and ‘Some of the time’.
In 2023, the gap between those who felt ’lonely’ some of the time who reported having ‘bad or very bad’ health (46.1%) compared to those who reported ‘very good’ health (8.2%) was 37.9 percentage points. In 2024, this gap decreased to 35.1 percentage points (42.3% and 7.2%) and fell further again in 2025 to 34.2 percentage points (42.6% and 8.4%). See figure 5.2 and table 5.1.
In 2025, people with a self-reported chronic illness were more than twice as likely to feel ‘downhearted or depressed‘ at least some of the time in the four-week period prior to their interview compared to those who reported having no such chronic illness (24.6% and 12.0% respectively). While those who reported having a chronic illness who were feeling ‘downhearted or depressed’ at least some of the time fell by over four percentage points from 28.9% in 2024 to 24.6% in 2025. For those who reported not having a chronic illness, the proportion feeling ‘downhearted or depressed’ at least some of the time has increased consistently for the third year in a row (9.7% in 2023, 10.7% in 2024, 12.0% in 2025). See figure 5. 3 and table 5.2.
Of those who reported suffering from a chronic illness there was a slight decrease in the proportion who said that they felt ‘lonely ‘at least some of the time between 2024 and 2025 (from 25.1% to 23.8%). See figure 5.4 and table 5.3.
There was a decrease in the proportion of people who reported feeling ’downhearted or depressed’ at least some of the time for both those who reported being ‘severely limited’ in usual activities (57.5% in 2024 and 51.9% in 2025) and those who reported being ‘limited in activity’ but not severely (27.0% in 2024 and 23.8% in 2025). See figure 5.5 and table 5.4.
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