The vast majority of adults in Ireland are satisfied with their private and professional lives, according to latest release from the Central Statistics Office's (CSO) Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey concerning "Job and Life Satisfaction and Barriers to Work".

The study shows that 89% of respondents over the age of 18 are satisfied with their life and that 89% are satisfied with their job, although those who are dissatisfied with their work complained of longer than contracted hours and a lack of promotional opportunities.

Of the one in 10 people who said they are dissatisfied with life in the third quarter of last year, when the survey was carried out, 58% found it hard to make ends meet, while almost one in seven (15%) were in poor health.

Long-standing health problems (28%), caring for dependent family or friends (13%), and childcare issues (11%) were given as the main barriers to returning to work for those currently not in employment, although one in five (21%) said there were no barriers preventing their return to work.

"Despite living through more than 18 months of the pandemic and its associated restrictions on our personal and working lives, life and job satisfaction rates remained high amongst the Irish population when the survey was conducted during the months of July, August, and September 2021," said Maureen Delamere, CSO statistician.

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"Almost nine in ten persons were satisfied or very satisfied with their life as a whole. Our data analysis shows that there are many factors which can influence life satisfaction such as physical health, the ability to make ends meet, support from family, friends, and neighbours, and whether a person is working or not.

"The support that one gets from family, friends and neighbours plays an important role in how satisfied people are with their lives," she explained.

More than one third (36%) of people who get no support or help from family were dissatisfied with their life, compared with most (93%) of persons who get a lot of support from family and are satisfied with their life.

Similarly, more than nine in 10 (92%) persons who were working were contented with life, compared to four in five (82%) of those who were not employed, highlighting employment as a factor in happiness.

"Of those who were dissatisfied with their job, work pressures played their part," Delamere continued. "While employees who are satisfied with their job also work long hours, more people who were dissatisfied in their job reported working long hours.

"Nearly nine in ten (88%) workers dissatisfied with their job said they have to work very hard, compared with just short of eight in ten (78%) workers satisfied with their job.

"Similarly, of employees who were dissatisfied with their job, almost six in ten (59%) never have enough time to get their job done, compared with 44% of workers who are happy in their job."

And half of workers (49%)who have to work more than their contracted hours to get the job done are dissatisfied with their job, compared to 40% who said they were satisfied with work.

The survey also found that full-time workers with long service were more likely to turn down an offer of a better paid job elsewhere than part-time workers with the same service or employers and full and part-time workers with less service.

Temporary or part-time employees or those with less service were more likely to leave a job within the next six months, irrespective of offers of a better job elsewhere, with the likelihood of temporary staff (24%) leaving their job in the next six months equivalent to double that of permanent staff (12%).

Similarly, part-time workers with a short length of service with their current employers (25%) were nearly twice as likely as their full-time counterparts. (14%) to leave their organisation in the short term.

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