COVID-19 - Our Lives Five Years On: Social Impact

Respondents to the annual Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) survey who are 16 years or older are asked to rate their satisfaction levels with various aspects of their lives (such as their overall life satisfaction and satisfaction with the financial situation of their households) on a scale from 0 (‘Not at all satisfied’) to 10 (‘Completely satisfied’).  The mean score for each satisfaction level indicator is calculated by adding individual scores and dividing the total by the number of individuals. In this publication, the responses for the satisfaction level indicators are also grouped as low (0-5), medium (6-8), and high (9-10). 

As part of the annual SILC, respondents are asked how often they felt ‘downhearted or depressed’ or 'lonely' in the four weeks prior to their interview date. The answer options to these questions are ‘Don’t know/refuse’, ‘None of the time’, ‘Rarely’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘Most of the time’, ‘Always’.   

The data collection phase of the SILC survey occurs during the first six months of the SILC reference year. In 2020 almost half of the data collection phase of the survey was conducted before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently the survey did not capture the true impact of the pandemic on well-being in 2020. In the SILC 2021, COVID-19 related public health restrictions were in place during the January to June data collection period, including Level 5 restrictions for more than half of this period. Therefore, 2021 SILC well-being indicator estimates are more reflective of the impact of COVID-19 on well-being and mental health than estimates from the 2020 round of the survey.

Most recent well-being results from the 2024 SILC were published on 25 March 2025. In this publication well-being and mental health indicators are broken down by age, sex, tenure status (occupants of rented accommodation compared with those living in owner-occupied accommodation) and by other demographic characteristics.

Some of the findings from the 2024 SILC are

• In 2021, when COVID-19 related health restrictions were in place, one in five (21.4%) respondents reported high levels of satisfaction with their overall life. In 2024 one in four (26.4%) respondents reported high levels of satisfaction with their overall life.
• In 2024, a similar percentage of male and female respondents reported low overall life satisfaction (10.5% and 10.6% respectively). In 2021,13.1% of male and 14.9% female respondents reported low overall life satisfaction.

Results from the Social Impact of Covid-19 survey February 2021 show that older people reported higher compliance rates with government advice and guidelines regarding COVID-19 during the period that restrictions were in place. Even though these guidelines were more restrictive for older people, results from the SILC 2021 survey show no statistically significant differences between age groups in the percentages reporting loneliness in the four-week period before their interview date, with just over one in five people in each age group having felt lonely.

Results from the 2024 survey show that for all age groups there has been a drop in the percentage of respondents reporting feeling lonely at least sometimes in the four-week period before their interview when compared with percentages in 2021. The largest drop in the loneliness rate between 2021 and 2024 was for people aged 50-64, where the rate fell by almost 10 percentage points from 22.1% in 2021 to 12.8% in 2024. See figure 6.1.