Well-being in Malta: Sweet averages mask our sour inequalities

A few days ago, on the International Day of Happiness, as part of the Well-being INDEX project, we presented an update of well-being data at the Parliament of Malta, with a view to convincing politicians and policy makers that we now have the evidence-base needed to craft policy for well-being, beyond GDP.

We explained that the data in use for the Well-being INDEX project – a collaboration with the Malta Foundation for the Well-being of Society and the University of Malta – has been gathered by the National Office of Statistics through EU-standardised methodologies, involving 10,000 individuals from 4,000 households annually for the last six years.

The data visualisations on the freshly minted dashboards reveal a slightly positive trend over the six years, in all the well-being indicators, including self-assessed satisfaction with different domains of life and emotions. The main worry, as a national average, is time-use satisfaction: between 2022 and 2023, the already low indicator for time-use satisfaction dipped further.

Beyond the sweet averages, however, the data reveals some sour inequalities. Scaling up from the sample, we believe that 64,178 individuals feel nervous most of the time, while an additional 120,854 feel this way at least some of the time. Chronic loneliness affects 13,110 individuals, while 19,944 experience frequent depression.

Furthermore, 67,703 people report rarely or never feeling calm, and 29,820 rarely or never feel happy. In 2023, there were 8,323 people who experienced absolute misery (that is scoring only 0-1 on the 10-point scale of life satisfaction). Even one person scoring at this level is one person too many.

The Well-being INDEX dashboard also reveals how the conditions of our lives have changed and how this could explain things. The latest data, collected in 2023, is based on the 2021 census as a sampling frame, meaning that the sample looks more like the current population – including foreigners. While the population continues to age, foreigners now total 133,446, skewing the gender balance towards more men (+26,650). Interestingly, foreign-born residents consistently report (slightly) higher well-being than Maltese.

Economic conditions have improved, and many now enjoy higher incomes than six years ago. Yet, 8,079 individuals still earn less than €10,000 per year, and material deprivation continues to hound at least 40,990 people – a 17.6% increase from 2018. Unemployment rose from 4,207 to 7,852 during the pandemic but has since declined. Material deprivation sends one of the clearest signals in our dashboards: across all well-being indicators, the materially deprived score lower than average.

Education levels have steadily improved, with many reaching higher education levels. Health trends were negatively impacted by COVID, and there remain 19,015 people reporting bad health in 2023. To these we must add all those in institutions that are not captured by these statistics. Again, people in poor health consistently score worse across all well-being indicators, including life-satisfaction and happiness. It is here that we must focus to enhance well-being in Malta.

Despite improvements in housing conditions, challenges persist here too. While fewer people live in inadequate housing, yet, in absolute numbers, 42,069 still reside in dark dwellings, and 32,771 report living under leaking roofs. Poor housing conditions are associated with negative emotions and lower overall satisfaction with life.

Chronic loneliness affects 13,110 individuals, while 19,944 experience frequent depression- Marie Briguglio

Geographically, people have moved from south to north, while Gozo remains sparsely populated, home to only 7.9% of the population. Environmental concerns such as noise and pollution have become more prevalent, affecting 143,684 and 161,708 people, respectively in 2023. Noise contributes to heightened stress and nervousness and doggedly remains one of the least regulated environmental pollutants in Malta: construction, traffic and entertainment are among the worst culprits. That needs to change.

In terms of household structures, marriage and childbirth rates continue to decline. Separated and divorced individuals are on the rise and they report lower well-being – including financial. Widowed individuals, while reporting high time-use satisfaction, experience greater loneliness. Single parents face significant challenges across most well-being indicators. Taken together, these trends suggest greater scope for interventions that assist diverse family structures to live and feel better.

Social interactions – known to be a crucial driver of well-being – were significantly impacted by COVID-19. However, these interactions have since picked up. Volunteering, however, has declined steadily over the six-year period, a worrying trend considering the intimate positive relationship between “giving” and well-being.

Comparing Malta to the European Union (EU) using commensurate measures of self-assessed life satisfaction reveals that Malta scored above the EU average (7.4 vs 7.2 on a scale from 0 to 10). But, in comparing Malta globally (using Gallup data), we find we have slipped from 40th to 48th on life-evaluation. The agenda for a ‘well-being economy’ is picking up around the world.

The Well-being INDEX project underscores the importance of well-being data to understand how people actually feel. Lurking below our solid performance on traditional measures like GPD, and our national well-being averages, are inequalities that must be addressed through policy.

Marie Briguglio

Marie Briguglio is the principal investigator of the Well-being INDEX project (www.well-beingindex.mt), a collaboration of the Malta Foundation for the Well-being of Society and the University of Malta.