Levels of life satisfaction have not recovered to pre-economic crisis rates in more than half of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries – the world’s most advanced economies.
The lowest average score for personal wellbeing is registered in Greece. It is the only country among the OECD’s 34 not to have seen an increase in GDP per capita between 2007 and 2014. Trust in the government plummeted to 13% in 2012 from 38% five years ago. According to a release by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the country was also lowest for feelings of safety and the proportion of people who feel optimistic about the future.
Iceland, Switzerland and Denmark have the highest life satisfaction, scoring 7.5 out of 10. The average rating of life satisfaction comes via data from the OECD conducted by Gallup World Poll and gives an average (mean) score on a scale from zero to 10 (the higher the number, the higher the life satisfaction).
In 2014, the average rating of life satisfaction of adults aged 16 and over in the UK was 6.8 out of 10 – slightly higher than the OECD average of 6.6.
Chile saw the greatest improvement in life satisfaction scores in 2014. Its increase in GDP per capita was the third highest among all the OECD countries. According to the ONS report increased public social expenditure, a decrease in unemployment and the recent presidential election results all played a factor in boosting the country’s scores.
Meanwhile, despite an increase of nearly 5% in GDP between 2007 and 2014, the UK saw no change at all in the level of life satisfaction over the same period.
The report found that 74% of those in the UK said they were in good, or better than good, health in 2013, which is higher than the OECD average (68%), as was the level of confidence in the national government in 2012 – 47% compared to the OECD average of 40%.
The ONS report, which brings together the latest social and economic data from a mixture of government releases and organisations, aims to create an idea of how the UK feels about a range of society topics from safety to happiness and how other OECD countries compare.
National wellbeing measures used by the ONS, such as life satisfaction are used to gage how well a country’s society is progressing. The ONS explains that to paint a fuller picture of how a country is doing, a “look at wider measures of economic and social progress, including the impact on the environment” is also needed along with more traditional indicators of a country’s progress such as economic growth.
