Personal wellbeing

Personal wellbeing is the most direct representation of how people are doing. Measures in this domain cover people’s opinions on aspects of their current wellbeing.

The Office for National statistics (ONS) releases annual personal wellbeing estimates that go down to local authority level. The data come from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and are for persons aged 16 and over.

The personal wellbeing measures ask people to evaluate, on a scale of 0 (low or very low) to 10 (high), how satisfied they are with their life overall, whether they feel they have meaning and purpose in their life, and about their emotions (happiness and anxiety) during a particular period.

Any decline in personal wellbeing refers to lower levels of life satisfaction, worthwhile, happiness and higher levels of anxiety.

 

Key findings

• In line with the national picture, in the Lancashire-12 area average ratings of personal wellbeing appeared to decline between 2021/22 and 2022/23. However, these changes were not statistically significant in the Lancashire-12 area but were in England. Average ratings of personal wellbeing in England have declined across all measures in the year ending March 2023.
• Rates of personal wellbeing have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and for England the average ratings of personal well-being in 2022/23 still remain significantly below the pre-pandemic levels (2018/19).
• In the Lancashire-12 area, the average ratings for life-satisfaction, worthwhile and happiness in 2022/23 remain statistically similar to the pre-pandemic levels (2018/19), although a post pandemic decline was observed.
• In the Lancashire-12 area, the average ratings for anxiety in 2022/23 remain significantly higher than the pre-pandemic (2018/19) levels.

Lancashire-12 area's average ratings for 2022/23 

• 7.52 out of 10 for life satisfaction (7.62 in the previous year) and similar to England|7.44.
• 7.77 out of 10 for feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile (7.79 in the previous year) and similar to England|7.73.
• 7.50 out of 10 for happiness yesterday (7.57 in the previous year) and similar to England|7.38.
• 3.17 out of 10 for anxiety yesterday (3.06 in the previous year and 2.69 in 2018/19) and similar to England|3.24.

 

Because of small sample sizes and large confidence intervals, estimates for local authorities should not be ranked against each other. Estimates are intended for local authorities to compare over time and with other local authorities of a similar population size and structure.

ONS also produces UK Measures of National Well-being Dashboard -  A visual overview of how people in the UK are doing across 10 domains of national wellbeing, with breakdowns by UK countries and regions, age and sex.

The personal wellbeing explorer tool below gives a detailed view of wellbeing in local areas and click here to view the trends in up to six districts at a time.

 

 

Page updated November 2023