Sir, – Your analysis of the World Happiness Report’s findings in Saturday’s editorial “The Irish Times view on the World Happiness Report: a clear sign of Ireland’s generational divide” (March 23rd) claimed that the report “finds people under 30 are the unhappiest in Ireland” but precisely the opposite is true – the report found that this age group were most likely to evaluate their lives positively. You mistook the global ranking of Irish youth’s happiness with their actual scores. Similarly, the claim that “the happiest cohort in Ireland are those aged 45 to 59″ is unfounded. They are, in fact, the least happy group (albeit not particularly unhappy at that). Happiness in Ireland follows the well-established U-shape seen in most developed economies: we tend to be happiest in our youth and in our old age, and least happy in middle age when we are struggling to balance work, leisure, family, and financial responsibilities.
Furthermore, the editorial incorrectly states that the report measures happiness by examining income per capita, healthy life expectancy, and other metrics. The rankings are based solely on the answers to a single question about how well people believe they are doing in comparison to the best possible life for them.
The real story here is of Ireland’s gradual decline in happiness since 2019 despite remarkable economic success. An increasing number may consider the “best possible life” to be out of reach due to a lack of housing and the increasing cost of living, contributing to a restriction of personal freedoms. These are important factors that make for a happy country. – Yours, etc,
Dr MARK HENRY,
Technological University Dublin,
Grangegorman,
Dublin 7.