Less happy with life during the pandemic
One year after the pandemic broke out in Norway, a Statistics Norway survey reveals that almost one in three respondents reported that they were unhappy with life. This is an increase from the previous year.
“The decline in satisfaction from 2020 to 2021 indicates that the coronavirus situation and various infection control measures may have had a negative effect on the quality of life in Norway over time. When we carried out the survey in 2021, we had lived with infection control measures to varying degrees for a whole year,” says Statistics Norway adviser Kristina Strand Støren.
In the recent Quality of Life Survey carried out by Statistics Norway, 21 per cent of the population responded that they were highly satisfied with life in 2021, while 28 per cent had low life satisfaction.
When the survey was conducted in 2020, 26 per cent reported that they were satisfied with life, while 22 per cent answered that they were dissatisfied with life.
The surveys were conducted in March in both 2020 and 2021.
The results from this year's survey show that the population to a lesser extent experiences life as meaningful, that people are coping less well, are less engaged, have less rewarding relationships, less optimism for the future and more negative emotions compared to 2020.
Støren says that the difference from one year to the next is not very large for the various indicators, but that all of them are statistically significant.
“Not everyone feels worse off during the pandemic, but the figures suggest a clear trend at the population level,” says Støren.
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Read the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.no
