Wellbeing among young people in Northern Ireland, 2022

Date published: 6 December 2023

• Personal Wellbeing – how satisfied people are with their lives, their level of happiness, and whether or not they think the things they do are worthwhile
• Self-Efficacy – a person’s belief about their capabilities to exercise influence over events that affect their lives
• Locus of Control (LoC) – the degree to which a person feels in control of their life. Individuals with an internal LoC believe in their own influence and control while those with an external LoC believe control over their lives is determined by outside factors

Please note: separate scales are used for Year 8 pupils and pupils in Year 9-12 for self-efficacy and locus of control. As a result, direct comparisons between the two age groups cannot be made. A higher score signifies better wellbeing across all metrics.

Key Findings include:

• Average scores for Year 8-12 pupils in 2022 for life satisfaction (6.8 out of 10), worthwhile (6.9 out of 10) and happiness (6.7 out of 10) were all considered high when rounded to the nearest whole number.
• In 2022, 47% of Year 8 pupils and 53% of Year 9-12 pupils had low self-efficacy, or low confidence in their own abilities. While these figures cannot be directly compared due to the use of separate scales, this represents an increase in the proportion of pupils with low confidence in their own abilities compared to previous years (2019 and 2016).
• Pupils with a disability had lower levels of wellbeing compared to those without a disability. This pattern was observed across all measures of wellbeing and among both Year 8 and Year 9-12 pupils.
• Pupils reporting their health as ‘very good/good’ had higher levels of wellbeing compared to those reporting their health as ‘fair’ or ‘very bad/bad’. This pattern was observed across all measures of wellbeing and among both Year 8 and Year 9-12 pupils.

Publication

The report is available on the Executive Office’s website at:

www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/publications/wellbeing-among-young-people-northern-ireland-2022