Distribution of well-being: subjective well-being

Subjective well-being – how happy and comfortable people feel – is a crucial aspect of overall well-being, because it so closely intertwined with quality of life (Diener and Suh, 1997). If we know how people feel about their own well-being, it helps us understand more about how they value their own lives, regardless of what objective measures like income level or employment status say about this.

Here we describe subjective well-being in terms of how satisfied people are with their lives. For more aspects of subjective well-being, see CBS Statline (2024).

  • 18- to 34-year-olds, people with a medium or low level of education, people born in the Netherlands with at least one parent born outside Europe, and people born outside Europe are less likely to be satisfied with life than the overall Dutch population.
  • The over-55s, people with a high level of education, and people born in the Netherlands whose parents were also both born there are more likely than average to be satisfied with life.
  • The overall share of the population reporting satisfaction with life was 3.1 percentage points lower in 2023 than in 2019. The fall was much stronger than average – 10 percentage points – for the youngest age group (18 to 24 years).

Satisfaction with life

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Situation in 2023

In 2023, 84.2 percent of adults in the Netherlands said they were satisfied with their lives, 11.1 percent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, and a relatively small group of 2.3 percent said they were dissatisfied with life.

  • 18- to 34-year-olds are less satisfied with life than the Dutch population as a whole: 76.1 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said they were satisfied; for 25- to 34-year-olds this was 81.4 percent. By contrast, the proportion of over-55s who are satisfied with life is higher than average, with 86.4 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds, 89.9 percent of 65- to 74-year-olds and 87.1 percent of over-75s reporting they are satisfied with the life they lead.
  • People with low and medium education levels are less likely than average to be satisfied with life, while those with higher education are more likely than average to feel so.
  • People born in the Netherlands whose parents were also born in the Netherlands are more often satisfied with their lives than average (85.8 percent). People in the Netherlands but with an origin outside Europe are less often satisfied than average. This is also the case for people who themselves were born outside the Netherlands.

Sex, age, education level and origin/country of birth may correlate with each other. The percentage of people with higher education, for example, is not the same in all age groups. For the measurements conducted in this analysis, these correlations are taken into account by applying a standardisation procedure, which corrects for the variation in the occurrence of the above characteristics. On the basis of standardised figures on satisfaction with life, the above findings remain largely intact. However, if a correction is applied for the unequal composition by sex, education level and age of the group born in the Netherlands whose origin lies outside Europe compared with other origin/country of birth groups, this group no longer deviates from the average.

Changes between 2019 and 2023

The total proportion of people saying they are satisfied with their lives was 3.1 percentage points lower in 2023 than in 2019. This fall was larger than average for the youngest age group (18 to 24 years): in 2022 the share of this group who said they were satisfied with life was nearly 10 percentage points smaller than in 2019. The total share of people aged 55 to 64 years who said they were satisfied with their lives fell by less than average: the share remained more or less the same.

For people with medium levels of education, satisfaction with life showed a less favourable development than average, with a fall of 5.0 percentage points.

Beuningen, J. van, K. van der Houwen and L. Moonen, 2014, Measuring well-being. An analysis of different response scales. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Den Haag/Heerlen/Bonaire

CBS, 2024, StatLine - Welzijn; kerncijfers, persoonskenmerken (cbs.nl). Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Den Haag/Heerlen/Bonaire.

Diener, E and E. Suh, 1997, Measuring Quality of Life: Economic, Social and Subjective Indicators. Social Indicators Research, 40 (1–2), blz. 189–216.