Publication of ‘Understanding Life in Ireland: The Well-Being Framework 2025’

The Government has published ‘Understanding Life in Ireland: The Well-being Framework 2025’. This shows Ireland’s performance on thirty-five indicators, across eleven dimensions, in the Government’s Well-being Framework.

Ireland’s Well-being Framework provides a more holistic way of assessing how Ireland is doing as a country, with its focus on quality of life and on equality and sustainability across economic, environmental and social issues. Analysing progress under the Well-being Framework is now an annual contribution to the Budget process and the Framework continues to shape broader policymaking.

Overall, we continue to make progress, both against where we were 5 years ago, and in comparison with international peers. In particular, dimensions that perform well in terms of trend over time include: Income and Wealth (driven by the change in net Government worth) and Connections, Community and Participation (driven by changing trends in the number people feeling lonely).

Dimensions where Ireland performs better overall when compared internationally include: Work and Job Quality (driven by data for weekly earnings and employment rates) and Mental and Physical Health (driven by lower numbers reporting depression).

Ireland continues to perform less well over time and in comparison with other countries in the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity dimension.

While performance is positive on average, it is important to recognise that not everyone feels this progress evenly. In particular, the Well-being Framework identifies single parent households and unemployed people as having lower well-being outcomes than the average across a number of areas.

The 2025 Analysis of Ireland’s Well-being Framework tells us that:

In general people in Ireland are happy and positive about their life. While there has been a decrease in the proportion of children reporting happiness, more people are now rating their overall satisfaction with life as ‘high’.

We are spending a little more of our disposable income on housing, with those renting at market prices having a substantially greater likelihood of housing cost overburden.

Ireland performs particularly well across the Knowledge, Skills and Innovation indicators: in 2022, Ireland had the largest proportion of 15-year-olds with at least level 3 proficiency across OECD countries in both reading and maths and the lifelong learning rate continues to trend upward.

The percentage of the population with unmet medical need rose from 2% in 2019 to 2.9% in 2024. Ireland is ranked 18th among EU member states in this measure for 2024.

The 2025 Analysis shows that women have poorer outcomes than men in certain indicators, including: school-aged girls report lower rates of being happy at present when compared with male peers and women report feeling lonely more often than men.

Across dimensions, single-parent households have much worse outcomes compared to other household forms. They are also considerably less likely to be very satisfied with their time use and have poorer outcomes in terms of wealth and income indicators.

In terms of sustainability, 8 of the 15 designated indicators have improved over a five-year period. Greenhouse gas emissions were lower in 2023 than in 2018, and the proportion of houses with higher energy ratings increased by 53% between 2019 and 2024.

Speaking today, the Taoiseach said:

“Ireland’s Well-being Framework enables us to assess how the country is faring across a broad spectrum of areas which affect peoples’ daily lives. It is encouraging that this analysis once again shows that Ireland is making progress overall, and that our population is generally happy, well connected and highly skilled. This report is an important reminder, however, that not everyone experiences this progress equally.

“The Well-being Framework is now well established in the Irish policy making system and is an important tool for Government as we work to improve the quality of life for all our people as part of our next Budget and beyond.”

The Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, said:

“Today’s Well-being Framework report provides an important lens into how Ireland is faring, looking beyond economic growth to broader social, environmental and equality dimensions. I am pleased to see the positive progress we are making on well-being in Ireland, knowing this means real improvements in peoples’ daily lives. However, the report also identifies areas where we need to do more, and deeper integration of well-being measures into policy is important to achieve the more sustainable and inclusive economy that we aspire to.”

The Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Jack Chambers, said:

“I very much welcome the publication of this report. It provides important insights into how public policy is providing people living in Ireland with the opportunities and resources to progress and enhance better living standards and higher quality of life for individuals and their families. Given the Well-being Framework’s focus on the impact of public policy on people’s lives, it is an important initiative in our efforts to ensure that public policy utilises and maximises our limited resources efficiently to deliver effective public services to people in communities across our country.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

Copy of the Well-being Framework is available here: Understanding_Life_in_Ireland_2025.pdf

Overview of the Well-being Framework for Ireland

Ireland’s Well-being Framework was launched in July 2021. It seeks to move beyond using just economic measures in gauging our progress as a country, by encompassing economic, environmental and social issues together, rather than separately or in isolation. It focuses on quality of life, with an emphasis on equality and sustainability.

The Framework consists of eleven dimensions which are made up of different aspects of well-being. The Well-being Information Hub, which is hosted by the CSO, covers thirty-five data indicators across these eleven dimensions and provides a medium term, holistic view of quality of life in Ireland.

The Government has agreed that analysis of the Framework will be published annually and included as part of the Budget cycle. In 2025, the Framework featured at the National Economic Dialogue, in the Summer Economic Statement and will be part of Budget Day documentation.

More information is available at: gov.ie/wellbeing-framework.

Report - ‘Understanding Life in Ireland: the Well-being Framework 2025’

The CSO’s Well-being Information Hub shows Ireland’s performance across thirty-five well-being indicators selected to give a high-level overview of how the country is doing. It reviews the latest data from these indicators in terms of trends over time and compares Ireland’s performance with other countries. It also highlights which indicators are particularly important for economic, social, and environmental sustainability and finally looks at what the indicators tell us about well-being outcomes and equality.

The indicators show that for Ireland the well-being trend over a five-year period is moving in the right direction, with eighteen of the twenty-eight indicators (for which data are available across time) showing positive progress, with the remaining ten showing negative or little progress (table 1).

Note: leaf icon indicates a sustainability indicator

Relative to others, Ireland performs above the EU or OECD average across nineteen of the twenty-five indicators for which data are available, while six performed poorly relative to other countries (table 2).

Of the fifteen indicators considered particularly important for sustainability (economic, social and environmental), 11 have trending data and 8 of these have improved over the 5 year period. Three of these 8 perform particularly well: net government worth, new dwelling completions and high domestic energy rating. 10 of the sustainability indicators can be assessed for international performance and three of these perform particularly well: population reporting depression, reading and maths performance among 15 year olds and healthy life years. 1 of the sustainability indicators – waste generated - performs poorly across both trend and international comparison.

This year’s data show that single-parent households, younger people in the workforce, unemployed people, people in bad or very bad health, households with lower incomes, and households in accommodation rented at market rates are population cohorts with lower well-being outcomes than other comparable groups across multiple well-being dimensions.

A review of the Well-being Framework will be carried out in 2026, informed by consultation with stakeholders.

For more information visit the Well-being Portal at www.gov.ie/wellbeing-framework.