Well-being Information Hub

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.

 

Medium-term change of Well-being Indicators

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 medium-term (mainly 3-5 years). The latest update provides a broadly positive picture of life in Ireland, with the majority of indicators improving over the medium-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 3-5 year basis in the table below, however trend information for each indicator can be accessed by clicking on the relevant indicator.

 

Medium-term change (mainly 3-5 years) of Well-being Indicators
Positive Change	No Change	Negative Change
Population rating their Overall Life Satisfaction as High	Healthy Life Years	School aged Children who report being Happy with their Life at Present
Population who did not Feel Depressed or Downhearted in the Last 4 Weeks	Median Real Household Disposable Income	Research and Development Personnel
Median Household Net Wealth	Median Household Net Wealth	Pollution, Grime and Other Environmental Problems
Net Government Worth	Households making Ends Meet with Great Difficulty	Water Bodies Assessed as High or Good
A or B Domestic Dwelling Energy Rating	Lifelong Learning Rate
New Dwelling Completions	At Risk of Poverty Rate after Rent and Mortgage Interest
Labour Underutilisation Rate	Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Employment Rate	Murder Rate per 100,000 Population
Mean Weekly Earnings	Persons Killed or Injured on Roads
Long Working Hours in Main Job	No Time Series
Population satisfied with Time Use	Population Reporting Depression
Population who Feel Lonely	Unmet Need for Medical Attention
Median Real Household Disposable Income	Reading and Maths Performance in 15 Year Olds
Waste to Landfill	Average Distance to Everyday Services
	Population who worry they could be a Victim of a Crime
	Carers providing at Least 20 Hours Care per Week
	Population with at least 2 people they are close enough to count on if they had a serious problem
	Persons who Experienced Discrimination in the Previous 2 Years
	Perceived Social Inclusion

 

Over-arching Well-being Framework for Ireland

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.