Align Management News Digest

July 2005

Irish people rank among Europe's happiest

IRISH people rank among the happiest and most satisfied in Europe despite having the widest gap between the well-off and the poor and inadequate health and transport services.

The first EU quality of life survey of 28 European states shows that Irish people rank among the most satisfied with their lives after the Scandinavians and the Belgians. The poorer new member states and countries like Portugal and Greece come lowest for personal satisfaction with Bulgaria at rock bottom.

For personal happiness we come second to Denmark and equal with the Finns but well ahead of the British, Italian and Spanish. The spread between the happiest and least happy people in Ireland was much narrower than in many other states where some feel on top of the world while others are down in the dumps.

But on living standards Irish people in the lowest income quartile reported significantly high levels of economic strain. Over one-quarter could not afford to take a week's holiday away from home and 12% reported unpaid utility bills. The spread between the better-off Irish households and poorer ones was second widest after Britain.

Not too surprisingly, Irish people ranked their health services significantly below the EU average even though more than the average felt that they enjoyed good personal health. Despite the emphasis on being a 'knowledge society' with high skills, nearly six out of ten Irish respondents do not use the internet. Danish people were more than twice as likely as Irish people to have participated in a training course over the previous year.

The study was conducted at the end of 2003 on behalf of the Dublin-based European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions and published last week.

Its acting director Willy Buschak noted that for Irish people health service and public transport were reported to be well below EU standards but that Irish people still maintained strong family supports and felt that the education system and state pensions were relatively high.

He cautioned against people making crude comparisons between Boston and Berlin when comparing social and economic systems adding that Dublin seemed to have developed its own mix of enterprise, social partnership and support systems.

The study found that secure, quality and fairly well-paid employment was the biggest driver for personal satisfaction. On average job security was fairly high in Ireland with just 6% of workers fearing they would lose their job within the following six months. In Spain (10%), Portugal (12%) and Greece (12%), the risk or fear was much higher. Unskilled workers were about three times more insecure than professional employees about continued employment.

Labour Affairs Minister Tony Killeen said that the report contained much positive aspects on Irish life but he was concerned to improve the skills base of the workforce. He added that those with higher skills and relatively good education were more likely to receive training than employees with limited skills.

The survey is based on 26,000 face-to-face interviews across Europe and included about 1,060 in Ireland. A follow-up study will be undertaken in 2007 to see if EU integration has had any clear impact on the ten new member states mainly in eastern and central Europe.

People were asked where they might get €1,000 if they needed it in a hurry and 74% of Irish respondents felt they could get it from a family member and 23% from a friend, neighbour or work colleague.

This compares with 15% of Belgians and British stating that they would have nobody to turn to which was the case for just 4% of the Irish. Obviously in the poorer states it would be harder to raise €1,000 and the quality of life data reflects this.

High employment and increased social payments were reflected in only 4% of Irish households stating that they were experiencing difficulty in making ends meet. Luxembourg was the only state with a lower level (3%) and it was much higher in France (12%), Spain (18%), Germany (10%), Britain (8%) and Sweden (6%).

Another surprise finding is that Ireland reported the lowest ratio of working adults with children under four as a percentage of the 1.8m workforce. This may influence policy decisions for state crèche supports and statutory leave for working parents with young children.

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