Distribution of well-being in 2020 similar to 2019

Well-being comprises more than the narrow concept of economy and income. It also includes factors like health, education level and quality of the living environment. Together these factors constitute a broader concept of well-being. This broader well-being was not distributed equally across the Dutch population in 2019. And this did not change much in corona year 2020. On the whole, groups that deviated from the average on certain well-being indicators in 2019 still did so in 2020.

Higher education and non-migrant background more likely to result in higher well-being

The distribution of well-being is measured using scores on a maximum of 21 indicators in the areas of personal well-being, material well-being, health, labour and leisure, housing, society, safety and the environment. Information for 2019 and 2020 is available for 17 of the 21 indicators.

People with a high education level score higher than average on 10 of these 17 indicators. These include satisfaction with life, perceived health, paid work and trust in other people. In 2019 higher educated people scored higher than average on 11 indicators.

People with low education levels score higher than average on two indicators in 2020, just as in 2019. In 2020, these indicators were satisfaction with leisure time and experiencing pollution in the living environment.

People who do not have a migrant background score higher than average on 14 indicators (16 indicators in 2019). The only indicators for which they do not score better than average are being overweight, satisfaction with commuting time and trust in institutions. Just as in 2019, people with a non-western migrant background do not score higher than average for any indicator. It should be mentioned in this respect that people with a non-western background are relatively more likely to have lower education levels, which in part explains the unfavourable position of this group.

Education level important

The analysis looked not only at distribution at the level of population groups, but also looked at the cumulative favourable or unfavourable results at individual level, based on data on eleven well-being indicators for each person. Overall cumulative effects of favourable results could be seen for 15 percent of the population and unfavourable results also for 15 percent.

The role of education in particular is clear in these cumulative effects at individual level. It is an exception for people with a low level of education to accumulate favourable results: 2 percent of them show this, while over one-third have an accumulation of unfavourable results. People with high levels of education are more likely to accumulate favourable results: 34 percent of them are at the top of the distribution.

Over one-quarter of people aged 65-74 years are at the bottom of the distribution, while people aged 25-64 years are more likely to be in the top.
The analysis took into account variables age, sex, education level and migration background. If we also take into account the relationships between these variables, the highest completed level of education turns out to be the strongest determinant for the number of indicators for which people have favourable or unfavourable results. This is followed by ages and migration background.