Please excuse us for stating the obvious, but…
People are feel bad in Ireland.
Data gathered by the Central Statistics Office, published on Wednesday 10 June, has revealed that 29.6% of Irish people rate the personal well-being as ‘low’ as of April this year. This is compared to 8.7% who said the same in 2018, marking an enormous downwards spiral.
The worst effects were seen in the youngest category, where just 10% of people between 18-34 would report their level of wellbeing as high — compared to 48.8% just two years ago.
Various metrics of wellness have fallen across the board, with satisfaction in personal relationships dipping from 60% to 42.4%.
The percentage of people feeling nervous some of the time (35%), or feeling downhearted and depressed some of the time (32.4%), has doubled in the past two years. Over a quarter of all Irish people report being lonely either some or all of the time, compared to 17% two years ago.
The Covid-19 lockdown measures have also seen major changes in terms of behaviour and consumption. For example, tobacco consumption is up by 30.5% of respondents since restrictions were put in place, and has only fallen for 8% of smokers. Junk food consumption is also up among 45% of participants, and down for just 12%.
Major concerns reported by respondents included their own health, someone else’s health, interrupted education and maintaining social ties.
However, when asked to rate their level of compliance with government guidelines on Covid-19, answers were very positive.
The mean score for compliance with government advice and guidelines was 9.2. Four in five (80.6%) of respondents rated their compliance with government advice as high, less than one in five (18.4%) rated their compliance as medium with less than 1% of respondents rating their compliance as low.
The report can be accessed in full here.
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