Nearly a third of all employed people (30.5%) volunteered and in terms of hours volunteered, nearly half of the hours were provided by employed persons (48.3%). Those who were unemployed provided 8.3% of all volunteer hours. See figure 2 and table 1.1.

While 6.9% of volunteers carried out both direct and organisation based volunteering there was nearly an even split between those whose volunteering was for organisations (45.0%) and those who volunteered directly (48.0%). Looking in more detail at the type of volunteering people did, more men carried out volunteering through organisations (50.1%), while 52.5% of women volunteered directly. The volunteering hours provided a clearer picture as 64.0% of all hours volunteered by women was done directly rather than through an organisation. The younger the volunteers were, the more likely they were to be volunteering through an organisation. As the age group of the volunteer increased there was a tendency to move towards direct volunteering rather than organisation based volunteering. See table 1.2.

In the Dublin region 71.8% of the time volunteered through organisations was listed under the category of non-profit organisations including charity, sporting and religious organisations. This compares with only 51.9% in the West region. Very few persons volunteered hours to business organisations (1.8%) or to government organisations (3.6%). Other organisations which included community groups gained 3 in every 10 hours volunteered through organisations.  See table 1.3.

All the volunteer work was coded as an occupation and nearly 29% of all volunteering was coded to the Caring, leisure and other service professions. This group of volunteers provided 43.7% of all of the volunteer hours and females contributed 58.3% of their hours under these occupations. Men were more prevalent in the associate professional and technical occupations with 4 in 10 (persons and hours) being coded to this occupation classification. See table 1.4 and figure 3.

Subjective Wellbeing

In this pilot module respondents were asked about subjective wellbeing.  The wellbeing questions related to ‘life satisfaction’, ’things done in life being worthwhile’, ‘happiness yesterday’ and ‘anxiety yesterday’. The answers were rated on a scale of 0 – 10 where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’. Respondents were also asked about their health (answers rated on a scale of 1 – 5) and about their satisfaction with their level of education (answers rated on a scale of 0 – 10). The data was evaluated by calculating the mean value of the ratings given and also by grouping ratings into ‘low’, ‘medium’, ‘high’ and ‘very high’ for the life satisfaction, life worthwhile, happiness yesterday and education satisfaction questions and into ‘very low’, ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’ for the ‘anxious yesterday’ question.

Four out of every five adults (82.3%) viewed the things that they did in their lives as worthwhile by giving a rating of 7 or more out of 10. When asked to rate their overall ‘life satisfaction’ on a scale of 0-10,  just over three-quarters (76.3%) of all adults aged 16 and over  rated it as ‘high’ to ‘very high’.  The two ends of the age spectrum exhibited the highest positive ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘worthwhile’ ratings. People aged 16 – 19 and 60 plus reported the highest ratings with almost 40% of those aged 75 or more rating their life satisfaction as ‘very high’ (9 or 10). The mean values for the satisfaction questions ranged from 7.2 for ‘education satisfaction’ to 7.8 for how worthwhile they felt their lives were. See tables 2.1, 2.2 and figure 4.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, slightly fewer than 6% rated their satisfaction with their lives as ‘low’. However, as can be seen in Figure 5 when the category of ‘low’ classified by age was examined, nearly one tenth of all 20-24 year olds rated their ‘happiness yesterday’ as ‘low’ as did those between 45-49. See tables 2.1, 2.3 and figure 5.

When asked about day-to-day emotions, 37.7% of the population rated their happiness yesterday as ‘very high’ (9 or 10). This contrasted with nearly 15% of the population declaring that they experienced a high level of anxiety the previous day. Nearly one in three unemployed people rated their ‘happiness yesterday’ as below 7 compared with only one in five employed people.  See tables 2.3 and 2.4.

In relation to people’s satisfaction with their level of education, over two-thirds (66.4%) of all adults reported ‘high’ or ‘very high’ satisfaction. The mean rating for satisfaction with their level of education was 7.2. Slightly more than four out of every five adults with a third level qualification gave a ‘high’ or ’very high’ rating for their level of satisfaction with their education. This was in contrast with the 45.4% of those with primary level or no formal education who had a similar level of satisfaction.  Those most satisfied with their level of education were the 16 – 19 year olds where 82.3% gave a rating of 7 or more. See figure 4 and table 2.5.

When asked to self-assess their own health, 44.7% of the adult population responded that they had ‘very good’ health. Only 3.2% of adults felt that their health was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.  As might be expected, the younger members of the population reported the best health and the percentage of those reporting ‘very good health’ decreased going up through the age groups. Over 70% of 16-19 year olds reported ‘very good health’ as compared with 16.6% of those aged 75-79.  See table 2.6.

Within those who reported ‘bad’ or’ very bad’ health, a third (33.1%) rated their ‘satisfaction with their lives’ as less than 5 (‘low’) and 36.1% of them gave a ‘low’ rating for ‘happiness yesterday’. See tables 2.1 and 2.3.

Some comparisons can be made with the UK who had also conducted this survey using the same wellbeing questions.

The average ratings for the questions on ‘Life satisfaction’, ‘Worthwhile’, ‘Happiness’ and ‘Anxiety’ were similar to those of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Ireland and Northern Ireland had the highest rating for ‘happy yesterday’.  Along with Wales, Ireland had the second highest mean rating for how worthwhile people felt their lives were. Ireland also had the highest percentage (51.8%) of people who had a ‘very low’ ‘anxious yesterday’ rating; this compared with 39.2% for England. See table 4.

In 2013 the Survey on Income and Living Conditions contained once-off questions on wellbeing and health. The reference period for that survey for Ireland was the two year period 2012 to 2013.  A comparison of the questions which were comparable in both surveys is given in Table 5. The rating categories for the QNHS data in this release were adjusted for that table to enable the two sources to be compared. See table 5. 

Volunteering and Wellbeing

As the respondents largely overlapped for both modules the results on wellbeing were broken down by whether or not the respondent had been engaged in volunteering. When using the mean rating for each wellbeing question in relation to gender, age class, and employment status etc. the values were broadly similar for those who volunteered and those who did not. See tables 3.5 and 3.6

It was only when looking at the ratings of ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ that one could see much variation. Those who volunteered, whether they were male or female, were more likely to rate their level of satisfaction as ‘very high’ or high’ than those who did not volunteer. The one area that this was less noticeable related to the question on ‘anxious yesterday’ which displayed less of a difference between those volunteering and those who did not. See tables 3.1 and 3.2.

When each wellbeing question was analysed by age class it became more evident that those who rated their wellbeing in the ‘very high/high’ category were more likely to be carrying out volunteering work. For those who did not volunteer 73.7% of those aged 65 plus rated their lives as being ‘worthwhile’ as ‘very high/high’.  This increased to nearly 90% for those who volunteered. Those aged 16-24 were 11.9% more likely to rate their ‘happiness yesterday’ as ‘very high/high’ if they volunteered in the previous four weeks. See tables 3.3 and 3.4.