People over 65, retired professionals and homeowners are the happiest people in Ireland, new figures show.
In contrast people in the earlier stages of careers, renting or unable to work due to long-term illness or disability are more likely to be down or depressed.
The figures from the Central Statistics Office, published on Wednesday, show a quarter of people have “high levels of satisfaction” with their lives, with those over 65 the happiest while people aged 25-49 the most likely to feel downhearted.
The measure of national wellbeing in 2025, drawn from interviews and data collection for the annual Survey of Income and Living Conditions (Silc), shows women (20 per cent) were twice as likely to report feeling downhearted or depressed in the previous four-week period as men (11 per cent).
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And 40 per cent of people living in consistent poverty last year reported feeling down or depressed in the previous month, compared with 14.6 per cent of those not in consistent poverty.
The findings show little change from 2024. Last year 26.5 per cent of respondents reported high levels of satisfaction with life, up marginally on the 26.4 per cent in 2024.
More than a third of respondents (36.5 per cent) aged 65 and over reported high overall life satisfaction compared with a fifth (22.1 per cent) of 25 to 49-year-old respondents.
Older people were especially happy with their financial situations compared with younger cohorts.
Almost a third (28.5 per cent) of over 65s had a “high overall satisfaction” with the financial situation of their household – 10 per cent higher than for those aged 50 to 64 years (18.5 per cent) and more than 15 per cent higher for respondents aged 25 to 49 years (13.1 per cent).
Housing
Security of housing tenure impacted on life satisfaction. Using a scale of zero to 10, with zero meaning “not at all” and 10 equating to “completely”, respondents in owner-occupied accommodation reported a mean overall life satisfaction score of 7.8 compared with a score of 7.2 for those in rented accommodation.
Respondents who were unable to work due to long-standing health problems had the lowest mean overall life satisfaction score (5.8) compared with retired people at 8.
Almost half (45.2 per cent) of those unable to work due to long-standing health problems reported feeling down or depressed, compared with 35.5 per cent of those unemployed, 13.3 per cent of students, 12.5 per cent of employed people, and 12.1 per cent of retired respondents.
Asked about loneliness, single people were up to three times as likely to experience this as married people.
The survey found separated (34.1 per cent), widowed (28.3 per cent) or divorced (30.5 per cent) respondents said they had been lonely in the previous four weeks compared with 9.4 per cent of married respondents.
Though women are more likely to report feeling down than men, within these statistics are contrasting shifts.
In 2025, the percentage of men reporting high overall life satisfaction fell from 28.3 per cent in 2024 to 27.7 last year, while among women this measure increased from 24.6 per cent two years ago to 25.5 per cent in 2025.
