Distribution of well-being: subjective well-being

Subjective well-being concerns how people rate their lives. It is about life satisfaction as a whole and about specific aspects of life. It is also about positive and negative feelings that people experience and the extent to which they feel their lives have purpose and meaning. Subjective well-being is strongly influenced by the extent to which people experience control over their lives. The differences between population groups are measured in terms of life satisfaction.

Subjective well-being – or the well-being of the population – is an important aspect of well-being, because it is closely interwoven with quality of life. Information on people’s well-being provides an understanding of how they rate their own lives in general, i.e. relatively independently of objective measures such as income level or position in the labour market.

• 18- to 34-year-olds, people with primary education or a prevocational secondary (VMBO) qualification and people who were themselves born outside the Netherlands are less likely than average to be satisfied with their lives.
• Adults aged 65 or older, those who completed higher vocational or university education and people themselves born in the Netherlands with both parents also born in the Netherlands are more likely than average to be satisfied with their lives.
• The total share of people reporting being satisfied with their lives was 2 percentage points lower in 2024 than in 2019. Among the youngest age group (18 to 24) the decrease was significantly stronger than average, at nearly 8 percentage points.

Life satisfaction

Situation in 2024

In 2024, some 85.3 percent of adults in the Netherlands said they were satisfied with their lives. 12.0 percent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied and a relatively small group, 2.7 percent, said they were dissatisfied with their lives.

• People aged 18 to 24 are less likely to be satisfied with their lives than the Dutch population as a whole. Of that group, 78.5 percent say they are satisfied with their lives. Adults aged 65 and over, however, are more likely than average to be satisfied with their lives. Among 65- to 74-year-olds, 88.8 percent said they were satisfied with their lives; among those aged 75 and over, the figure was 87.6 percent.
• People with primary education or a VMBO qualification are less likely than average to be satisfied with their lives, while those who completed higher vocational or university education are more likely than average to indicate this.
• People born in the Netherlands whose both parents were also born in the Netherlands are more likely than average to be satisfied with their lives, at 87.1 percent. Dutch residents born outside the Netherlands are less likely than average to be satisfied with their lives.

The characteristics of sex, age, educational attainment and origin are correlated with one another. For example, the percentage of people with higher vocational or university or equivalent education is not the same in all age groups. This can be accounted for by standardising the figures, correcting for the differences between groups with regard to the aforementioned characteristics. Based on standardised figures for life satisfaction, the above conclusions about differences compared to the average remain largely unchanged. However, 25- to 34-year-olds are less likely than average to be satisfied with their lives.

Differences between 2019 and 2024

The total share of people saying they were satisfied with their lives was 2 percentage points lower in 2024 than in 2019. Among the youngest age group (18 to 24), the fall was more significant than average. Of this group, the share of people saying they were satisfied with their lives was over 8 percentage points lower in 2024 than in 2019.